Old Plow Makes Slick Berry Planter

Old Plow Makes Slick Berry Planter PLANTERS Bob Fredrickson took the backache out of planting berry bushes with his modified IH plow With an acre of blueberries half an acre of blackberries and about 4 acres of raspberries it has had plenty of use He first tills the ground and then comes in with his one row planter “This past spring I used it to plant 1 000 asparagus roots ” says Fredrickson “I dropped them in as fast as I could and they came up about 6 in to 1 ft apart ” Fredrickson says the planter was easy to put together and used old equipment headed for scrap It consists of the front end of a 1940’s vintage one-bottom plow He removed the plowshare trimmed the shank and mounted a shovel plow to it He chopped the plow frame behind the shank and replaced it with an angle-iron frame The frame mounts to the backside of the plow shank At its rear two packer wheels from an old horse drawn planter provide support and pack the dirt to either side of the freshly planted rootstock “I put a shaft through the two packer wheels and mounted it to the frame with a couple of pillow-box bearings ” says Fredrickson He mounted a plank for a seat just ahead of the packer wheels An open top box mounts over the plow shank The rear side is beveled to provide the rider with ready access to rootstock The box was recycled from clothes lockers once used by iron mine workers in the area Two steel panels mounted at angles to the frame gather dirt from behind the shovel plow and pull it back in around the planted stem where it’s packed by the rear wheels “The plants are easy to grab and drop in the furrow behind the shovel plow and the planter does the rest ” says Fredrickson “The hand levers on each front wheel make it easy to set the planting depth ” The plow even lets Fredrickson know how often to drop plants needing spacing He mounts a spring clip to one of the packing wheel rungs As the wheel revolves the clip strikes a stopper on the frame “If I want more space the clip is mounted farther out on the rung ” explains Fredrickson “I just move it toward the center for shorter spacings ” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Bob Fredrickson E313 Lake Rd Ironwood Mich 49938 ph 906 932-4060; fredbob3@up net

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