Construction and use of a hiller for a walk-behind tractor at a summer cottage. How to independently design a hiller for a walk-behind tractor: analysis of a couple of options How to make a double hiller for a walk-behind tractor yourself

The second most important tool for a walk-behind tractor or agricultural winch after a plow is, of course, a hiller. In the spring, I had a motorized winch for plowing and a plow; after planting the potatoes, hilling was approaching, but there was little time to make a hiller. The idea arose to buy a hiller in a store. Having visited all the places in the city of Smolensk where you can buy a hiller, I was once again convinced that it would seem that with a developed trading system, choosing something good is very difficult (or rather impossible).

That year I decided to use my neighbor's hand hiller. My neighbor has already offered me his tool several times, noting that everyone really praises the virtues of his hiller.

Time passed and I started making my own homemade hiller. I again had to take the template from my uncle. He bought his hiller in a store several years ago; at the moment, he could not find such a model for sale. The complex element is the front part of the hiller - a curved corner.

Modern manufacturers, simplifying the design and trying to save on equipment, solved the problem of a curved corner simply - they made a break by welding two corners at a certain angle. You see such a hiller in the photo on the left. Since in a garage it is a difficult task to bend a corner along a radius, so it was decided to remove the template from the halves, bend them until the radii match, then weld them and process the resulting weld with a grinder, selectively weld if necessary and clean it again. I welded it twice and got an even, perfect layer of metal. With the remaining elements, everything is quite simple and clear. Everyone determines the assembly sequence for themselves.

The width of the hilling can be adjusted by turning the wings, and the depth can be changed by raising or lowering the children. 2. Plus, you can play along with everything during hilling due to manual control. The handle is made of water pipes, I bent them in the garage, heating the bends until red with a blowtorch (gas torch), and poured sand into the pipe. The result is a bend of excellent quality, without fractures. Two handles are welded to a plate that has holes for attaching the hiller (the plow also has similar holes, because previously these same handles were used for the plow), at the moment they are not used to control the plow, the plow plows itself without the participation of a plowman. The first impression was excellent; after hilling my plot, my neighbor dragged my hiller and motorized winch to his garden.

Hiller drawings

The figure below shows a drawing of the front part of the hiller, which is welded from two identical halves. It is necessary to make a template according to this drawing, then the two resulting halves are bent until the radii match and are welded in 2-3 passes. Download the hiller drawing in PDF format

Below is a drawing of a hiller wing; it can be cut from metal 2mm thick.

The wing bends something like this.

Below are all the main dimensions of the hiller base, the thicknesses of the elements that make up my homemade hiller are indicated.

How to choose and make a potato hiller with your own hands?

One of the most popular agricultural crops is potatoes; they are grown here and in Eastern European countries. In the process of many years of growing potatoes, various agronomic technologies were created.

They helped to facilitate crop processing and also increase yield. On an industrial scale, the crop is grown using a tractor with attachments - cultivators, and on personal plots, potato hillers are used for a walk-behind tractor, which you can make with your own hands.

1 What types of hillers are there?

After the winch and plow, the hiller is the second most important unit. He helps to cut furrows for planting, which he then fills with planting material. There are several options for this tool:

Measurements of a lister hiller for potatoes for a walk-behind tractor

1.1 Lister hiller

The lister unit is the simplest type of tool; it has a fixed working width. The design of this device consists of two connected and extended wings, which are fixed to each other.

The wings of the tool are stationary, so the grip width cannot be adjusted. It will not be possible to adjust the hiller to the row spacing. In this case, when working with the tool, the row spacing is adjusted.

The width of the lister hiller is 25 - 30 cm. This is not the most convenient option, because for growing potatoes, a row spacing of 50 - 60 cm is recommended.

A special feature of this device is the presence of thin racks; in this case, the motor cultivator does not reload when the hiller is buried in dense soil. Some lister hillers have a streamlined shape, which is more practical.
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1.2 Variable working width devices

The unit with variable working width is convenient to hill up, because it is equipped with an adjustment mechanism. It allows you to change the position of the wings.

It can be adjusted to the row spacing. The disadvantage of the device is its high energy consumption. This happens due to the work of the wings, which push the soil to the side; after the hiller passes, the soil crumbles back into the furrow. As a result, your arms and back get tired faster and the engine is wasted. Despite this, such hillers are among the most popular among gardeners.
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1.3 Disk devices

Disk models have the following advantages:

Scheme of a disk hiller for potatoes

easy to use (working with these tools requires a minimum of effort, they move forward themselves and do not require additional pushing from behind);
universal (with their help you can do hilling after planting tubers during the period of active growth of the above-ground parts of the plants);
are successfully combined with a walk-behind tractor (if you use a disk hiller at a reduced speed of the walk-behind cultivator, its power increases. This increases the efficiency of cultivation and improves the operation of the unit).

When choosing from a huge assortment, it is advisable to choose those models that are made of alloy steel, equipped with rolling bearings with a large thickness and disk diameter.
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1.4 Propeller-type hillers

Propeller-type hillers are used for cultivators and walk-behind tractors that have two forward gears. This is necessary so that in second gear with a power of up to 180 rpm, it is possible not only to loosen, but also to transfer soil into the beds from between the rows. This DIY potato hiller will do the job perfectly.
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2 How to make a hiller for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands?

You can make a hiller with your own hands using fairly simple designs. There's nothing complicated about it. To create a traditional non-adjustable hiller, you need to cut out halves of the product from metal 2 millimeters thick according to a template.

Drawing of a plow-hiller for a walk-behind tractor

You can also make a disk hiller with your own hands. To do this, you need to select the type of wings. Ploughshares, or disks, are steel sheets 1.5 - 2 millimeters thick, whose lower edges are bent.

The main thing is that the disks are symmetrical. Otherwise, the structure will move to the side, which will significantly complicate the work. To create the unit, you can use shares that served as a seeder.

The plowshares must be installed at an angle, maintaining a distance between the lower points that corresponds to the width of the wheel track, equal to the width of the row spacing.

To connect elements to each other, bolted connections or welding are used. The discs are connected using adjustable adapters.

In addition to the disk, the main parts of the tool are: screw lanyards, stands and a T-shaped leash. Turnbuckles are needed to adjust the vertical axis of rotation of the disk. A homemade hiller is attached to a walk-behind tractor with your own hands using a beam with wings.

A manual disk hiller is made on the basis of a drawing, and it is very important to consider the relationship between the fastening design and dimensions.

The tool can be manufactured in two ways: with variable wing width and fixed. With the first method of arrangement, the distance between the disks can be changed due to the symmetrical rearrangement of the racks.

To make working with the tool easier, it is necessary to install sliding bearings. To increase the reliability of the product, you can install bearings rather than sliding bushings.

Hilling potatoes with a hiller for a mini tractor

Using a disc hiller for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands will make the work easier and help increase productivity.

To attach a homemade hiller to a walk-behind tractor, use a bracket to the hitch without a beam. The unit lead is attached to the bracket using a stopper and bolts with washers. A corkscrew is inserted inside the square pipe and pressed tightly against the outer surface.

After this, the do-it-yourself hiller for a walk-behind tractor is ready for work. The traction of the walk-behind tractor can be increased by working in first gear. If the wheels slip during the hilling process, they must be paired.

A hiller for a mini tractor is installed to hill up your potatoes. For the tool to be truly effective, the potatoes must be planted in the correct rows, with equal distances between plants.

In order to process agricultural crops using a mechanized method, a high-performance hiller for a tractor is used. Its main purpose is inter-row treatment of potatoes from weeds and hilling of tubers to increase yield.

A manual hiller for potatoes or other plants will help make the work easier and increase the yield. A homemade tool made with your own hands is a profitable and necessary assistant in agriculture.
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2.1 Making a manual hiller at home (video)

Potatoes have always been and are an important crop that many summer residents grow on their property. Of course, potatoes grown on our own are always very tasty and of high quality.

However, do not forget that in order to get tubers of excellent quality, you need to hill them during the growing process. This is due to the fact that in loosened soil the roots of the plant grow, and due to this, a large number of potato tubers are formed.

Hilling is usually done using hoes. If the area is large, then this process takes a lot of time and effort. Therefore, it is worth thinking about a more convenient device for hilling.

A manual potato hiller is the most optimal device for loosening the soil. In addition, with the help of this simple device you can loosen a large plot of land measuring almost 10 acres in a matter of time.

So what is this interesting tool and how can you make it yourself? In order to understand this issue, it is worth considering all the properties and advantages of this device.

Why is hilling necessary?

As you know, during the growing process, potatoes must be periodically hilled. But many people don’t know why this is needed and what it does for potatoes.

So, why do potatoes need to be hilled:

1. Loosening the soil ensures air flow to the roots, due to which they grow.

2. Due to the fact that air enters the soil, tubers quickly form.

3. In addition, hilling increases the yield by up to 20-30%.

It is worth noting: in regions with a cool climate and high humidity, it is advisable to periodically carry out the specified agrotechnical technique. Due to this, excess water is removed from the ground, it warms up and is saturated with oxygen. But in the southern and southeastern regions, the moisture level is low, and this leads to irrigation problems. Sometimes hilling in these areas, on the contrary, harms the plants.

1. Loosening must be done on time. Typically, potatoes are loosened at least twice throughout the entire season. The first hilling should be done when the plant grows 5-10 cm out of the ground. The second loosening is done when the height of the stems reaches 14-20 cm. It is advisable that the bushes still have unopened flower buds.

2. Loosening should be carried out in cloudy weather, in the morning or evening. It is best to do this after rain, watering or after morning dew.

3. Do not hill up the soil in extreme heat. Because leaves and stems that are exposed to the open sun may burn and the plant will die.

You might be interested in an article on how to make a screw log splitter yourself.

Read a useful article on how to sharpen a chainsaw chain at home here.

Of course, hilling should always be carried out using special equipment. Some people use choppers, hoes and rakes, but working with them is quite difficult and takes a long time. Therefore, it is best to use a manual hiller. Moreover, you can make it with your own hands.

2 types of manual hiller

Do-it-yourself hiller for walk-behind tractor

Hilling is one of the most common types of work, and is carried out everywhere there. Where proper care is needed for various crops, such as potatoes. This type of work is not possible without such attachments as a hiller. In this material, we will tell you how to make a hiller for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands, provide the necessary drawings, as well as a selection of video clips.

Types of hillers

Hillers are divided into two types regular (lister, plow-shaped) And disc hiller. An ordinary hiller is increasingly losing its position compared to the disk hiller, with the help of which it is much easier and more convenient to hill up potatoes and other crops. Below, we will talk specifically about making a disk hiller with your own hands. For information on how to properly perform this type of work, see the topic “ Hilling up with a walk-behind tractor.”

Making a hiller for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands

Today, there are a lot of disc hillers on sale from different manufacturers. But often their price scares away. Much more practical. He will make a hiller for the walk-behind tractor with his own hands.

The hiller consists of the following parts:

— 2 screw lanyards

— T-shaped leash

Before production. It is necessary to find a suitable material; for the disks, steel sheets 2-3 mm thick, which are given a convex shape, can serve.

Screw lanyards perform the function of adjusting the angle of rotation of the disks along the vertical axis. Adjusting the discs to the required row spacing is quite simple; this is done by moving the vertical posts. These racks “C” are shown in the photo below, where you can also see how, using bolts “B”, the angle of attack of the disks relative to the movement of the walk-behind tractor is adjusted.

Important! To prevent the walk-behind tractor from being pulled to the side during operation, the hiller discs. Must be installed strictly symmetrically.

Hiller drawings for walk-behind tractor

When assembling manufactured parts, adhere to their dimensions indicated in the drawing. The drawings below describe quite clearly all the nuances of the hiller design, dimensions, and there should not be any difficulties in making the hiller with your own hands.

To attach the hiller to the walk-behind tractor, we use a hitch bracket without a beam. We attach the leash of the assembled hiller to the bracket with two bolts and a stopper. We insert the stopper inside the square pipe and press it from the outside. Using two bolts, you need to rotate the hitch bracket and align the leash along the longitudinal axis. We fix the position with nuts.

Do-it-yourself hiller for walk-behind tractor video

In the video clips below, craftsmen share their experience, not only in making the hiller, but also tips for working and setting up.

Do-it-yourself potato hillers for a walk-behind tractor - realizing your metalworking talents and saving money!

Proper cultivation of a personal plot significantly increases the yield of planted crops. In modern conditions of time shortage, summer residents often resort to small-scale mechanization of garden work. The walk-behind tractor has not been in short supply for a long time, and it can be found in almost every household.

Having spent a certain amount on purchasing this useful device, you want to save as much as possible during operation. One way to save money is to make your own attachments.

Of course, no one suggests forging a plow in a forge, as was done many decades ago. However, you cannot do without basic plumbing equipment.

To make homemade accessories for a walk-behind tractor you will need:

Welding machine, preferably for arc welding;
Gas-burner. Not to replace electric welding, but to warm up the product during hardening;
Angle grinder (grinder) of medium power, with a set of cutting and roughing discs;
Drilling machine or powerful drill. Of course - high-quality drills;
Electric emery (sharpener);
High-quality bench, vice, files and fastening tools.

The most popular in use are mechanized hillers for walk-behind tractors. We will talk about the culture for which summer residents are ready to stand in the field for hours, bent over. And an indispensable assistant in the fight for the harvest is attachments.

How to make your own potato hiller

First of all, let's decide which tool is right for you. There are several types of devices for hilling:

Lister with fixed and adjustable angle

Fixed is the easiest device to use and manufacture. It is easy to make using the attached drawings:

The base is made from steel sheet with a thickness of at least 3 mm. This node is the first to encounter soil resistance.

For the bracket we use a 4 mm steel strip; it is advisable to harden the part after molding. The field board can be bent from 5 mm steel, for example from a spring sheet. Only the metal must first be “tempered” and then hardened again.

Advice! A crucible is not required for tempering and hardening. With such sizes of workpieces, a gas burner is quite sufficient.

A stand is a structural element that bears the entire load. Therefore, select a strip of at least 8 mm thick for it.

General view of the base in the illustration:

Welding must be done in two passes, on each side of the joint.

Wings can be made from thinner sheets. 2 mm is enough. It is important to maintain the dimensions, otherwise it will not be possible to properly connect the wings to the base.

The wings are bent on any template - a steel pipe of suitable diameter will do.

Due to the concave geometry and the presence of welded seams, the structure is rigid.

An adjustable lister hiller is also easy to make yourself. The difference is that the wings are hinged to the base, and the tail section has rods for adjusting the angle.

The technology and thickness of the workpieces are the same as in the previous model. The versatility of the nozzle increases significantly.

The processing speed can be doubled if you make a two-row hiller for a walk-behind tractor.

For an already finished design, it is only necessary to modify the traction devices. It makes sense to make the fastenings movable so that the width of the rows can be adjusted.

IMPORTANT! Any lister hillers require significant power from a walk-behind tractor. Therefore, during production it is necessary to study the instructions so that your work is not lost.

Disc hillers

The advantage of this type of attachment is that it is synchronized with the capabilities of the walk-behind tractor. You can adjust speed and power, which are mutually exclusive. Since the resistance in the soil is small, there is no need to use a more powerful walk-behind tractor.

Another advantage is that by choosing the right disc sizes, you can hill up potatoes at different growth phases.

The design principle is clear in the diagram:

You can make such a canopy yourself. The only difficulty is in forming the discs. Most often, used cutters from a collective farm seeder are used. After traveling around the villages, it is fashionable to find inexpensive, good specimens. It is better to mount it on bearings with seals installed. The sliding bushings will jam.

If one disk jams, the walk-behind tractor may turn to the side. Setting up a disk hiller involves selecting the angles of inclination and immersion depth. For this purpose, the bracket is equipped with movable elements with bolted fixation.

An interesting donor option for circular hillers is worn-out circular saws.

With their help, the soil is not so effectively lifted from the row spacing, but the tines additionally loosen the soil, and it is possible to set a less acute angle between the discs.

This compensates for the lack of a cup-shaped profile. Of course, the axles must be on bearings. Otherwise, there will be no rotation - you will simply rake the earth along the rows. If you couldn't get disk bowls, this is your option.

Propeller hillers

Two forces are used - translational motion and rotation. An active hiller for a walk-behind tractor requires the unit to have two gears and a power take-off shaft. The efficiency of processing increases significantly, and the cost of equipment increases accordingly. Therefore, just like previous models, propeller-type hillers can and should be made independently.

Again, nothing other than high-quality iron, an angle grinder and a welding machine is required. The axles are adjusted to the walk-behind tractor, the remaining parts are simply arc welded.
The advantage of this device is that it performs two tasks in one pass of the walk-behind tractor.

The row spacing is loosened, and part of the soil is simultaneously transferred to the rows. That is, hilling with loosened soil occurs.

Adjustment of the propeller-type hiller is not required; only the distance between the nozzles is set. Different degrees of loosening and hilling heights are determined by the shape of the lugs and installation angles relative to the axis of rotation.

You can make a pair of bushings with brackets, and a set of blades for different types of hilling. It will be enough to quickly change the hooks, and you will have a new tool every time, with virtually no additional costs.

Practical adjustment of the hiller on a walk-behind tractor

The theory of operation of the device for hilling is described in textbooks for summer residents in such detail that even a person far from agriculture can understand the settings. However, in practice the saying “it was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the ravines!” works.

Features of the soil, current weather, quality of sharpening of hillers - this is not the entire list of factors affecting the quality of plowing. Not to mention the characteristics of the walk-behind tractor.
Therefore, before entering the garden bed, it is necessary to walk through the “virgin soil” with the equipment.

It is desirable that the soil characteristics be the same as on cultivated soil. During the “work”, firstly, you will feel how the attachment behaves, and secondly, you will set the correct angles and depth of processing.

It is equally important to choose the correct plowing (hilling) speed. The relationship between speed and power when using disk attachments was described above. The same applies to other devices. Sometimes a poor homemade hiller, with properly selected speed, works wonders. And expensive active baking powder simply scatters the earth around.

For a detailed story about the settings of the potato hiller and its installation on the KADVI walk-behind tractor, see this video material.

Many owners are thinking about the question of how to make hillers for a walk-behind tractor with their own hands, what are the general principles of operation of the device. With the help of a walk-behind tractor, you can cultivate the area for potatoes much more efficiently and carry out hilling faster.

A walk-behind tractor is an indispensable thing when cultivating crops on a personal plot. The use of this tool will allow you to process potatoes better than when working manually.

Types of hillers for walk-behind tractors

This tool is one of the most important for carrying out planting work on both a small and large area. The use of this tool will allow you to process potatoes better than when working manually.

Models of hillers come in a variety of varieties, the most commonly used are the following:

lister;
disk;
propeller type;
with variable working width.

This tool allows you to make furrows and then fill them with planting material. In this case, the potatoes will be planted in neat rows, which will significantly simplify their further care. In general, even if the tool is used infrequently, the result will be significant savings in your own effort and time.

Characteristics of individual types of hillers

Lister hillers are considered the simplest variety. They are two metal sheets connected to each other in the shape of wings. The lister hiller will have a strictly defined working width, since both wing elements are fixed, their width cannot be changed depending on the size of the row spacing. When working with a lister hiller, row spacing must be adjusted to the width of the hiller. This can be very inconvenient, since the width of the rows can reach 60 cm, and the grip of a factory-made lister hiller does not exceed 30 cm.

A characteristic feature of hillers of this type is the presence of racks that do not allow the walk-behind tractor to be overloaded while digging into the soil.

For work, it is preferable to use streamlined hillers, since they turn the soil out to a lesser extent, preventing it from drying out excessively.

Disc hillers are more efficient in operation. By reducing the operating speed of the cultivator, the power of the hiller increases, which leads to an increase in service life. Hillers of this type are much more convenient to use than list ones: a motor cultivator with such a hiller will move forward on its own, and you need to put in less effort to work with it.

The third advantage is versatility. You can use a disk tool both before planting potatoes and during the period when the above-ground part becomes quite high.

When choosing, you should give preference to tools made of steel, with large sheet thickness and with bearings instead of sliding bushings.

Tools with variable grip widths are more convenient to use than sheet tools. They are equipped with a mechanism that allows you to adjust the working width by changing the position of the wings. Therefore, the walk-behind tractor in this case can work with row spacing of any width.

Most often, a tool with a variable grip width is used to work with powerful mechanisms, the weight of which reaches 30 kilograms or more, and the engine power is 4 hp.

Propeller hillers are used on walk-behind tractors with two forward gears. The tool works as follows: when the propeller devices start working, the soil begins to be crushed and the weeds are dug up. Then the beds are hilled using soil.

If the power in second gear exceeds 180 rpm, the tool can be used to not only hill up, but also transfer loose soil from the rows to the beds.

Methods for making a hiller

Making a hiller for a motor cultivator is not such a difficult task, especially for a person who has his own plot.

The skills acquired during construction and repair work on the site are quite enough to make this tool yourself, without going to a specialized store.

The lister-type hilling tool is a fairly simple design, so making it with your own hands does not seem particularly difficult.

Half “wings” are cut out of a metal sheet 0.2 cm thick, which need to be bent so as to form a radius. Then carry out welding in several approaches.

The seam is treated with a grinder and cleaned. If necessary, selectively weld and clean again. The layer should eventually become perfectly even.

Stages of manufacturing a disk hiller

Before making a simple disk hiller, you need to select all the necessary materials and tools:

steel sheet 0.2 cm thick;
welding machine;
Bulgarian.

As in the previous case, the parts are connected until the radii are combined and welded together. Then the seams are welded, the seam is processed and cleaned until the surface is completely level.

Before making a hiller, the craftsman should carefully study the drawings, which indicate the dimensions of each element of the part. For high-quality work, you need to choose the type of disk. In steel blades for discs, the lower edges are bent, which must be bent. During manufacturing, it is important to take into account that the disks must be positioned symmetrically, otherwise the walk-behind tractor will periodically “move” to the side, which will greatly complicate the hilling process.

When assembling the disc hiller, you will need ploughshares. They can be taken from old structures. These parts are always mounted at an angle. A step is maintained between the lowest points. Its length can be determined by the wheel track width.

The parts are connected using bolts, although in some cases it is more convenient to use welding. Using an adapter, the disks are connected to each other. In addition to the main elements, you need to install a T-shaped leash, racks and turnbuckles. The latter are necessary in order to adjust the rotary axis of the disks. Lanyards are mounted to the walk-behind tractor using a beam.

Disc hiller can be made using two different technologies. The first involves creating a fixed working width, the second - adjustable. In the case of a clearly established working width, to adjust the distance between the working disks, you will have to change the location of the racks.

To facilitate further operation of the tool, you need to install sliding bearings - mechanism units designed to support and guide the axes. This measure will increase the efficiency and durability of the walk-behind tractor. Installation of sliding bushings is not recommended.

To connect the hiller to the mechanism itself, a clutch bracket is used. The wire of the hiller is connected to it using bolts. A stopper is installed in the inner space of the pipe, then the part is pressed tightly to the surface.

The bracket will change position using bolts. The walk-behind tractor wiring is located along the axis of the mechanism.

After securing all elements, the assembly of the disk hiller is considered complete. The walk-behind tractor with the new hiller is ready for the first start and further work.

Hiller made from scrap materials

Buying a sheet of steel requires spending money, while a hiller is made with your own hands most often out of a desire to save on the purchase of parts for a walk-behind tractor. Instead of a template, you can even use unnecessary materials that are literally at hand. For example, old pot lids.

However, they must be selected very carefully, in accordance with such parameters as the required disk diameter. To make a simple disk hiller with your own hands, a lid with a diameter of 40 cm is suitable, but it is better to take a larger one, 50-60 cm in size.

These figures were obtained taking into account such parameters as the length of the potato root system, planting depth plus ground clearance. The planting depth is usually no more than 8 cm, the length of the root system is up to 20 cm.

The selected cover is sharpened on all sides. Then it is bent a little with a hammer and attached to the walk-behind tractor.

As you can see, at home it is quite possible to make both a simple lister and a more complex disk hiller. Such a simple operation will allow you to make a spare part for any domestic walk-behind tractor (MTZ, Neva, Salyut, etc.), saving money, while speeding up the process and increasing the efficiency of hilling.

In order to simplify and facilitate the technology of growing potatoes as much as possible, it is advisable to make a hiller with your own hands. It is very necessary on the farm, since potatoes have long been the basis of our diet. This simple agricultural device can be of great help to gardeners.

A hiller is necessary to simplify the procedure for growing potatoes.

Timely and high-quality hilling is an indispensable condition for obtaining a high yield. Potato seeds, after being sprinkled with a thick layer of soil, can develop in the most favorable conditions. Previously, hilling in vegetable gardens and dachas was carried out exclusively by hand during weeding. Now, thanks to the availability of walk-behind tractors, this process has been greatly simplified and takes much less time.

In addition to its direct purpose, the hiller can be used to control weeds, and the lister design can be successfully used when planting potatoes and other row crops. For work in field conditions, there are cultivators with a large working width, coupled with tractors. On small plots of land, hillers for walk-behind tractors or manual versions of agricultural machines are widely used.

The principle of operation of hillers

The hiller allows you to dig a furrow of the required depth with a dump of black soil on both sides.

In terms of its importance in processing potato plantations, the hiller ranks second after the plow. The design of its working body allows you to dig a furrow of the required depth with a dump of black soil on both sides of it. When planting, the groove must be made larger, since potatoes need a thick layer of soil on top. Then the tubers are evenly laid out and the row is filled up. During hilling, it is not necessary to provide a large depth, which significantly reduces the load on the walk-behind tractor engine.

Weed control will occur both between the rows and on the potatoes themselves. The working parts of the hiller, cutting off the soil in the inter-row space, will simultaneously weed it, and the soil that the mouldboard wings will feed onto the row will completely cover the crops and weeds. If this is only good for potatoes, then for unwanted plants it is guaranteed destruction.

Types of hillers and their features

Existing hillers can be divided into several categories based on design features and technology of application:

Lister (head) hiller.
Point hiller with adjustable working width.
Hiller with propeller-type working parts.

The disc hiller is superior in efficiency to lister and adjustable models.

Lister (head) hiller. This is the simplest and most cost-effective representative in its class of agricultural machinery. Its main feature is the constant working width of the working body. The hiller is made in the form of two curved wings, connected in the front and spread apart at the back. The distance between the tips of the blades sets a constant working width during operation. The simplicity of the design makes it possible to produce relatively lightweight working parts that at the same time have sufficient strength. The absence of an adjustment mechanism has a positive effect on the cost of the product and reduces the likelihood of breakdowns when exposed to work loads.

The main disadvantages include the need to take into account the working width of the unit when planting. Potatoes are very demanding of unhindered access to oxygen. In field conditions, the row spacing for it is taken to be 70 cm. In summer cottages and garden plots, it is from 50 to 60 cm. In this case, the working grip of the hiller does not exceed 30 cm.

The racks of the working buildings are made of thin-walled metal. This engineering solution is one of the options for protecting the walk-behind tractor from overload. Even in cases where its power does not exceed 3.5 liters. With. and the weight is 30 kg, if an excess load occurs, the stand will bend and prevent breakage.

Recently, hillers with a streamlined working surface have become widespread. This innovation significantly reduces the load on the walk-behind tractor engine and does not cause excessive drying of the soil.

Point hiller with adjustable working width. At the moment it is one of the most popular. The presence of an adjustment mechanism allows you to change the distance between the ends of the dump wings. This technical solution makes it possible to configure the unit to work at any row spacing. However, it is necessary to take into account a number of significant disadvantages.

The main feature of the lister hiller is the constant working width of the working body.

During movement in the working position, part of the soil will fall back into the furrow after passing through the body. Operating such a unit will require a lot of physical effort and will cause you to get tired quickly. As the distance between the dumps increases, the load on the walk-behind tractor will increase significantly. Based on this, to use such an agricultural implement you will need equipment with a power of at least 4 hp. With. and weighing more than 30 kg. In addition, the presence of an adjustment mechanism increases the weight of the structure and reduces its reliability.

Disc hiller. It is superior in efficiency to lister and regulated samples, but at the same time has a higher cost. The price will depend on the following factors:

disk size and thickness;
quality of steel used;
presence of a regulatory mechanism;
use of bearings or bushings.

This hiller is most successfully combined with walk-behind tractors that have at least two forward gears. Operation at reduced speed ensures optimal use of engine power and minimal effort when operating the entire unit.

Hiller can be used at all stages of potato growth and development.

When purchasing, you should give preference to models made of high-strength alloy steel, with large thick disks mounted on bearings.

Hiller with propeller-type working parts. Such a unit has working parts, the design of which allows you to crush the soil and destroy weeds. After this, the softened soil is transferred to a row of potatoes. Propeller hillers should be used in conjunction with walk-behind tractors that have at least two forward gears. Working in first gear will allow for loosening and weeding. When the second one is turned on, hilling will also take place.

Making a hiller with your own hands

The design of a hiller of any type is not particularly complex or intricate. Making such a device at home is a real task and will save a lot of money.

When producing a lister hiller, at the first stage, templates for the hiller body are made. After this, sheet metal with a thickness of at least 2 mm is selected. Using templates, both halves of the body are cut out and bent until the curvature of the planes completely coincides. The workpieces are combined and welded at least twice. The weld seam should be cleaned with a grinder before each pass.

Then they move on to making the wings of the hiller. To do this, use metal of the same thickness. The planes are marked, cut and bent using the same technology. Mounting to the body can be done in two options to choose from. The wings can be welded or bolted on. The second option will allow you to replace the damaged part without cutting the metal.

When working together with a low-power, lightweight walk-behind tractor, the housing stand is made of a pipe with a small wall thickness. It is bent forward at the bottom and welded to the body of the hiller. If necessary, holes are drilled in the upper part of the rack for installation of fasteners.

Features of assembling a hiller with disk working bodies

Let's consider a hiller with disk working parts. In order for the assembly of a homemade hiller with disk working parts to be successful, it is necessary to select two disks in advance. Ideally, they should have a convex spherical shape and a thickness of at least 2 mm. An equally important condition is their identical size. Discs of different diameters will cause the walk-behind tractor to turn to the side during operation. It is best to use spare parts from old agricultural machinery. They can be removed from a disc harrow, plougher, or, at worst, from the coulters of a grain seeder.

In the latter case, you can also get hold of bearings of the required size. Two racks are made from a thick-walled pipe for installing working parts. At the lower ends, axles are welded for fastening bearings that work together with the disks. The design of the hiller should allow for adjustment to different row spacings. For this purpose, it is necessary to use a strong metal channel 1.2 - 1.4 m long as a frame, horizontally fixed behind the walk-behind tractor.

To install the racks on the frame, you will need two brackets that will allow you to change the angle of attack of the disks during operation. They are attached to the channel using a pair of brackets with threaded ends. The presence of such fasteners will allow you to easily and quickly move the racks along the frame and set the required working width. Adjustment of the depth of travel of the disks is carried out by raising or lowering the rack relative to the bracket. Installation of a channel on the suspension of a walk-behind tractor depends on its brand and is done individually.

Hilling up agricultural crops allows you to more successfully maintain soil fertility, increases the yield and decorative qualities of plants, and reduces the cost of pesticides and irrigation. It is impossible to obtain a good harvest of a number of crops, especially potatoes, without hilling. Hilling is especially effective in private farms and small commercial farms, where the soil is usually depleted and is used intensively. However, hilling rows with a hoe (hoe) is an extremely tedious job, and the cost of ready-made hillers, manual and for walk-behind tractors, is frankly not encouraging. We live in a post-industrial society (consumer, neoliberal, tolerant - it’s all just water on jelly), one of the main principles of its organization is that the more necessary a thing is, the greater the unjustified “markup” on its price. The basic product is offered at a reduced price, but on the accessories, without which the “base” is just an expensive toy, the “bells and whistles” are put in from the heart. For example, a plow often comes complete with a walk-behind tractor, but it is not very durable; so we will have to address this topic soon. But the second most needed attachment - a hiller - must be purchased separately, and is clearly disproportionately expensive to the cost of the product. However, there is a way out: you need to make a hiller with your own hands. At home, having a hand tool, a regular electric one (drill, grinder), a workbench and the ability to use a welding machine, this is quite possible.

Choosing a prototype

Hilling in general is a type of soil cultivation and is most often carried out with a conventional cultivator with replaceable working parts. The exception is hilling potatoes. In order for potatoes to form more large nutritious tubers, their rows are made wide (0.5-0.6 m), and the bushes are hilled high. Therefore, a potato hiller is a specialized mounted tool. Another specific case is the hilling of crops grown in narrow beds. Specialized cultivators for narrow rows exist, but in private household plots you can almost always get by with a regular cultivator with minor modifications, see for example. selection of videos:

Active or passive?

In large agricultural machinery, they often work with active hillers, the working parts of which are driven into rotation by the power take-off shaft of the traction unit. Walk-behind tractors and mini-tractors for private household plots and small farms are on sale, but in practice it turns out that an active hiller for them increases the productivity and quality of work slightly, but its cost and fuel consumption increase significantly, and the life of the engine is exhausted faster.

The reason is the engine. There are no mini-potatoes or tomatoes - we need edible ones. A mini-hiller should turn over soil per meter of row as much as a large one; the same amount of energy is needed for this. Taking 10 kW for a 5-hull hiller from a 100 kW diesel engine is not a problem, but giving 2 kW to a single-hull 6-10 kW engine will be at the limit of possibilities.

There is one more significant circumstance. Tractor diesel engines have a special design, although this is only noticeable to an engine specialist. Their liter power is small, but the engines themselves are very torquey, with a soft external characteristic, so the power output to the mounted unit has little effect on the specific fuel consumption in g/kW*h. It is difficult to install the same motor on a walk-behind tractor because the required performance characteristics are obtained only with a sufficiently large displacement of the engine. But even if this obstacle can be overcome, the motor will still turn out to be too expensive, heavy and bulky.

Large agricultural farms consume tons of fuel; Private household plots and small farms - in liters. But even here the engine of the walk-behind tractor must maintain a uniform traction force, adapting itself to the heterogeneity of the soil, because Processing errors are unacceptable in any case. Therefore, mini-agricultural machinery is equipped with engines, carburetor or with fuel injection, which are obviously power-hungry and designed for the speed of movement of the unit, approx. equal to walking speed. In this way, it is possible to minimize the costs of mechanization as a whole, but the external characteristics of the engine necessary for “painless” power take-off are no longer obtained: the engine is strained, burning an excessive amount of fuel and itself. Therefore, further we will limit ourselves to considering only passive hillers (without transmitting power directly to the working element), which load the source of traction force as little as possible.

Motor or yourself?

Hilling can be carried out in half a row (top right in the figure at the beginning), when each bed is wrapped with earth in 2 passes, and immediately in a row (bottom left in the same place). Hilling in 2 passes in half a row is useful only for individual crops grown on a thin fertile layer under conditions of insufficient moisture: the depression on the crest of the dump prism serves as a moisture trap. Effective hilling of potatoes is carried out only immediately in a row.

Manual hilling by one worker is only possible in half a row on light, loose, poorly moistened soils, up to a width of 30-35 cm. Already for hilling potatoes on ordinary garden soil without mechanical traction, at least two are needed (item 1 in the figure below ): the front one creates the actual traction, and the rear one maintains the furrow and the depth of cultivation. A great exercise for feminists who want to prove themselves no worse than vile male harassers. But liberal-tolerant ladies prefer public events, online or in kind. Maybe because there is no useful work to be done there? And for something useless you can bargain for more payment, because... 100% reliable criteria for assessing unproductive work are impossible in principle. But let's get back to the topic.

Having a walk-behind tractor with a power of 0.5-1 kW at your disposal will make it possible to hill potatoes in a row, pos. 2 in Fig. Motoblock Neva, etc. will pull a 2-body hiller for a working width of up to 0.8 m, pos. 3, according to the pattern 0.5 row + 1 row + 0.5 row. On any mini-tractor you can attach a 3-body hiller of the same type (item 4), for processing 0.5 + 1 + 1 + 0.5, or a 2-body hiller for processing 1 + 1. Labor productivity increases, per 1 pass, 2-3 times compared to hilling in a row, but the cost of purchasing special equipment increases significantly. Therefore, further we will focus on how to make a hiller for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands, with the possibility of using it “by gravity”, and how to make a manual hiller for small areas, approx. up to 20 acres.

Note: although mounted implements for mini-tractors are actually not the topic of this article (mini special equipment is purchased by competent, already wealthy owners), but if you suddenly got a tractor, below we give a video on how to make a 3-row hiller for a mini-tractor yourself:

And about the results of his tests:

Disc or ploughshare?

In large-scale agricultural technology, at least 10 types of hillers are used. There are hundreds of patents for this type of mounted implements for cultivating land, and more are being added. But, taking into account the capabilities of home technologies and the requirement to work also on human muscular traction, the choice of prototype turns out to be small: it is a hiller or a general-purpose plow, or a disk for potatoes. For more information on both, see below, but for now let’s see in what conditions which one is better suited. The most important of them is the granulometric composition and physical properties of the soil. If your plot is on loose, non-sticky sandy or sandy loam soil (which, as you know, is best for potatoes), then you can, without further ado, build a manual mini-hiller for light soils, which you can work with alone, see for example. video:

or a manual hiller for light soils, which may have to be pulled by two people:

In all other cases, you will have to take into account the features of weapons of pre-selected types. For a plow hiller they are:

The disc hiller has a mark. peculiarities:

The worker's qualification requirements are minimal: a correctly configured disk hiller (see below) automatically maintains the specified processing parameters.
On light loose soils, the traction force required is less than for a plow.
On medium and heavier soils the situation is opposite.
On silty, heavy alluvial, etc. The disc hiller will not last on sticky soil and neither will the tractor - the engine will stall, the hitch will break or the implement will break.
On soils that are optimal for potatoes, high hilling immediately in a full row with a sharp prism ridge is possible manually.
The working width of a single-row disc hiller is up to 630-650 mm.
High hilling in 2 half-rows is possible: discs running close to the root ball either roll over the roots or damage them imperceptibly for the plants.
Having encountered an obstacle, the working parts roll over it. A small mistake is possible, but there is no forced interruption in work.
When pulled by a winch, with an internal combustion engine or electric, it works just as well as when pulled directly.
For manufacturing, you need purchased or custom-turned components, see below.

Finally, you need to take into account the fact that potatoes are an excellent insurance crop for any type of farm. Potatoes cannot be called a record holder in terms of profitability, but the demand for “second bread” is stable, and the shelf life of potato tubers makes it possible to sell the crop with the highest possible profit. Therefore, a significant share of the total area is allocated for potatoes in complex agricultural enterprises. Which one exactly is a matter of economics in relation to specific local conditions, but first of all it makes sense to make a disk hiller. The exception is the case if your area on the ground is above average gravity, and you have not yet acquired mechanical traction.

Disk

The device of a disk hiller for potatoes is shown in Fig. below; its working parts rotate while moving under the influence of friction with the ground. However, if manufactured independently for a small private household, this unit can be significantly simplified by setting the vertical angle of inclination (in motorist’s terms – disc camber) fixed at 30 degrees with an angle of attack (negative toe) of 0 degrees, or leaving the discs vertical. In the first case, when adjusting the hiller to the desired angle of attack, the tilt of the discs will change somewhat, but when walking at walking speed this is not significant and is even convenient: the adjustment of the implement is carried out by just turning the discs.

The point here is processing speed. The maximum possible speed, which does not gradually kill soil fertility, is theoretically 20-26 km/h. Accelerating the movement of the implement provides double fuel savings: by optimizing the operating mode of the internal combustion engine of the traction unit and reducing the time for processing a field of a given area. Considering that, according to the most optimistic forecasts, there is only 50-60 years of oil left on Earth suitable for diesel fuel, and agricultural machinery consumes up to 20% of the heavy motor fuels produced in the world, this is a matter of vital importance, which teams of highly qualified specialists are struggling with.

Note: Light, low-sulfur shale oil is suitable for gasoline for passenger cars (which are already beginning to be replaced by electric vehicles), but you cannot get diesel fuel, jet fuel and fuel oil for ship power plants from it. Almost all known reserves of heavy oils are concentrated (in descending order) in Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran; In the USA and Venezuela, dark oil deposits are almost depleted. Moreover, their magnitude in the Russian Federation is not precisely known - Russian experts, when asked directly, dismiss them with general remarks that, they say, many potentially oil-bearing areas have not yet been properly explored. Why they remain silent is quite understandable; this is information of the greatest strategic importance, greater than nuclear-laser-stealth-hypersonic secrets all together.

The “real” disc cultivator shown in Fig. higher, it is adjusted to the maximum possible speed of movement on a given soil. But in private household plots or on a small farm, in general, it doesn’t matter; hilling will take, say, 2 or 2.5 liters of low-octane gasoline and the processing will take 1 hour 30 or 40 minutes, but making a hiller will be much easier.

Drawings of a disk hiller for potatoes designed for mechanical and manual traction are shown in the figure:

This is an old, well-tested Soviet amateur design, fragments of which, scattered throughout the Russian Internet, are brought together here. Its distinctive feature is the presence of scrapers that remove adhering soil from the disks. During manual processing, this greatly reduces traction force, and during mechanized processing, fuel consumption. layout by item in Fig. is this:

General view, marking of adjustment holes on the rake (emphasis on the first “e”), scraper, straight bracket (for an inclination of the disks of 0 degrees on ordinary garden soil;
Disk sizes and disk configuration schemes (see also below);
Angled disc bracket for working on sand and sandy loam;
Rake dimensions.

At pos. Figure 2a shows the setting of the discs for hilling in one full row (see bottom left in the figure above) with traction predominantly. from a walk-behind tractor or winch. At pos. 2b – setting up primary drives. for manual hilling in 2 half-rows per pass, top right in Fig. at first. For more information about setting up a disk hiller, see the video.

Where needs improvement

The weak points of the described design today are:

the discs themselves - they must be made of tough carbon steel;
scraper - the material is the same, but it cannot be bent at home: it will undergo thermal tempering, and the scraper will bend itself and not clean;
disc hub – works in the most difficult conditions.

Disk

The authors of the original design recommended taking discs and scrapers from agricultural machinery. It was easy for them to give such advice - then both were lying under their feet on any collective farm/state farm yard. Alas, those times are not now. Although, of course, not alas - we all experienced the hard way what happened at that time. Now, of course, buying discs for a hiller is not a problem. Problems appear later - with the quality of the material and the hub, see below. The price is the same - a obviously high-quality disc for a hiller for a walk-behind tractor costs half the price of a new mounted unit, or even more. So you need to find ways to make a good, durable disc for the hiller with your own hands.

The profile of the disk is simple: it is a spherical segment. Its deflection (distance from the base to the pole) for working at walking speed should be approx. 6% of diameter. You can do twice as much, then on light loose soils the blade prism will form better, but the traction force will increase.

The profile of a homemade disk for a hiller and its dimensions are shown in the figure:

Material – tough carbon steel no worse than St44. Disc thickness (not to be confused with the deflection arrow) 2-4 mm; the better the steel, the thinner the disk can be and the easier it will be to pull the hiller (or the less gasoline the walk-behind tractor engine will consume). For the same purpose, the cutting wedge is sharpened from the inside by 3-5 degrees; this can be done with a cylindrical abrasive roller inserted into an electric drill.

Where can I get it?

Yes, this steel is no worse than St44. The bottoms of household gas cylinders and the tops of boilers are not suitable. They are viscous, but low-carbon so that they can withstand pressure (have a fairly high yield strength) without the danger of sudden destruction. Unfortunately, their material is not adapted to abrasive, alternating and shock loads: the discs will quickly become dull and will soon become completely dented.

The most suitable blanks for hiller disks are wheels from car wheels; this is exactly what is needed, and with a large margin. They are a bit thick, however, but this will increase the traction force slightly. How to make disk shares for a hiller from auto disks, see video:

and the hiller itself with the following disks:

The disadvantage of hiller plowshares made from autodiscs is their not completely spherical profile. This further increases the traction force. If you have suitable sheet material, then how to make spherical discs for a hiller from it, see the video:

Scrapers

Old junk cars can also help out with scrapers: they can be made from pieces of springs; This is again what we need, with a large margin. Since it is impossible to bend spring steel in a home workshop without depriving it of its durability, toughness and elasticity, scrapers are simply cut out with a grinder. The discs are made according to the radius of curvature of the spring, because that of the disk itself is not critical, see above. You just need to take into account that the gap between the scraper and the disk is needed within 2-5 mm, depending on the stickiness (adhesiveness) of the soil.

Hub

It is precisely because of the hub that it is strongly not recommended to buy disks for a hiller (especially on the Internet): most of them have one plain bearing and become loose during operation literally on the first bed. The disc share hub for the hiller should sit on a pair of nylon plain bearings (see figure on the right). “Balls”, bronze and even fluoroplastic are not suitable, it’s all in the ground and dust. Therefore, the hub bushing is tightly closed at the ends with threaded caps, and its internal groove is regularly filled with shahtol, etc. grease for mechanisms operating in harsh conditions. The bushing is pinned onto the shaft. Which, of course, makes it difficult to remove/install the disk, but any other fastening will not withstand its operating conditions.

Note: on garden soil, somewhat heavier (more dense) than usual, simple disk hillers without separate adjustment of the tilt of the disks are sometimes squeezed upward while moving. In such a case, you can make a hiller for a walk-behind tractor with a platform on which some kind of load is placed, see for example. video:

Pluzhny

The design of a 2-row plow hiller for a walk-behind tractor is shown in the figure:

Gardeners often call the plow hiller eared because of its mouldboard wings. Its supporting frame is no different from that of a universal cultivator; Yes, in fact, this is a cultivator with replaceable working parts. Body Type 1 (furrower, tiller) is designed for furrowing (plowing furrows); Type 2 is actually for hilling. Type 1 wings are rigidly attached; the spread of Type 2 blades is adjustable. The Type 2 body is also equipped with a field board that sets the depth of the working body: less on heavy soils, more on light soils; The volume of the blade prism is adjusted in the same way, i.e. hilling height. The principle of operation of both bodies is the same: the coulter knife cuts the soil and transfers it to the ploughshare, which divides the cut layer in two. Only the operation of the wings and blades differs somewhat. The wings simply move the soil slightly to the sides and smooth the top of the blade prism. The dumps (no longer of soil, but of the hiller's ploughshare), on the contrary, form the smoothest possible prism with a sharp ridge.

It's all about the plowshare

There is no prompt adjustment of the plow hiller to the processing conditions. Instead, replaceable plowshares are placed on the frame carrier(s).

The plow share (item 1 in the figure) is not adjustable for the working width: it is 20-25 cm. It is a direct successor to the old peasant plow (see figure on the right). It is easiest to pull a hiller with a plowshare along narrow rows on light or ordinary garden soil. In addition, the plow share is suitable for shallow plowing, weeding, and digging up potatoes - but not on light sandy soils, where potatoes “scatter” large, tasty tubers widely and deeply.

A typical plow hiller is a lister, with lister blades of adjustable span, pos. 3 and 4 in Fig. higher. Lister in English is a page turner from to list (to flip through); just list without a preposition indicating that it is a verb (in Russian, a purely inflectional language, there are no such things) it is a list and a few more additional meanings. The working width of the lister hiller is the maximum possible for this type of implement, up to 450 mm. How to make a simple single-row lister hiller with your own hands, suitable for hand-pulling, see for example. video:

Potatoes, as mentioned above, are planted in wide rows. It is very difficult to pull a lister hiller with such a wide mouldboard, and then it will not form the required mouldboard prism. Therefore, potatoes are hilled with a chisel hiller (item 5). In general agricultural terms, a chisel is a knife that performs preliminary or additional tillage of the soil. There is some analogy here with tearing fabric: it is difficult to tear a whole piece of width, because... its edges are coated in a special way specifically against this; Likewise, the soil is cemented by the roots of plants. But if you cut the edge of the fabric just a little, the child will tear it “with a whistle”; This pioneering cut into the soil is what makes a chisel. For better loosening of the soil and the formation of a high pointed prism, the plowshares of chiser hillers are often made split (see figure below): the springy “feathers” of the wings (which are also called chisers), under the impact of lumps of soil, further loosen it and are further discarded. The advantage of chisel plow hillers for potatoes is that only the underground knife-arrow needs to be made from high-quality viscous carbon steel, and all other parts can be made from ordinary structural steel; complex profiling of the chisel, the ploughshare itself and the dumps is also not required.

Do you need a profile?

The surface profile of the ploughshare determines the fuel consumption of the traction unit during plowing and hilling with a plow hiller. The role of energy saving in agricultural technology was discussed above, therefore entire scientific institutes are engaged in profiling the ploughshares of agricultural implements. The development of a new profile that provides savings of 2-3% compared to current consumption is considered a major achievement. But it is very difficult to make a “truly” profiled ploughshare with your own hands, and it is also said above why in private household plots and small agricultural farms, when processing on foot, fuel economy fades into the background. As for the traction force (this is the main thing for a manual hiller), then at the same speed, careful profiling of the ploughshare reduces it slightly; almost imperceptible. But a foundry with a cupola furnace and a stamping press with a capacity of 2-5 thousand tons or more do not exist in a home workshop, and bending and knocking out the most ordinary structural steel with a thickness of 2 mm is exhausting work. Therefore, it makes complete sense to make a plow hiller with your own hands with a ploughshare of a simplified profile.

Design examples

In the Russian zone for cultivating open ground for potatoes from homemade plow hillers, a lister hiller with a simplified ploughshare(s) and a chisel hiller are applicable. Which one to do is determined by the nature of the soil on your site. We do not touch chernozems and other highly productive soils: they are not allocated for dachas, private plots and small farms; If you have such luck, then you need to work as an active hiller. On the gray, brown and brown soils common in the Middle Zone and southern Siberia, potatoes do not produce record yields, but their rows can be narrowed to a limit of 50 cm - the roots of the bush will not spread far, and there will be no tangible benefit from very high hilling. A lister unit will be effective here.

But another version of potato luck is also possible. When the last great glacier melted, flows from it in the Valdai region merged with a river up to 200 km wide (!). It flowed into the sea somewhere between present-day Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog. For the first time, the existence of such a river was proven by alluvial deposits on the Ergeni Upland, and geologists called it the Ergen River, and the sediments remaining from it were called Ergeni. Ergeni are widespread in the European part of the Russian Federation. For example, in the Voronezh region. literally across the road from rich, more than meter-high black soils, a stretch of thin grayish soil on loose sandy loam or sand may begin, God knows where in width - this is Ergen, stretching from here to the Dnieper; Chernigov and Sumy regions. with their famous potatoes (and the unbearably disgusting moonshine made from them) are almost entirely located on Ergeni. Potatoes grow well on spring trees, but they need to be planted in wide rows and hilled with a chisel or disc hiller.

Listerny

Drawings of a simplified profile ploughshare for a lister hiller drawn from a walk-behind tractor are shown in the figure:

There is not a single double-curvature part in the product, and only the knife is made from high-quality steel (detail 5 in the figure). The ploughshare itself is a piece of steel angle from 40x40x2. The blades are attached to it on card loops. Curvilinear blades (item 2 in Fig.) made of sheet steel from 2 mm can be further simplified by making them faceted, as shown at the top left in Fig. In this case, no greater traction force will be required, and the quality of processing of ordinary garden soil will not noticeably deteriorate.

Chiselny

A general drawing of a plow hiller for potatoes on light loose soils with a chisel share is shown in the following. rice.:

It can also be used to make the ploughshare itself; shown in Fig. There are enough sizes and sections for this. Only an arrow knife is made from strong, tough carbon steel (a piece of a spring, a part of a car disk, etc.); its cutting edge is ground to a simple wedge with a tip angle of approx. 20 degrees. The span of the dumps is up to 550 mm, they are made of sheet steel with a thickness of 2 mm. First you need to make a life-size model of the plowshare from packaging cardboard, etc. light sheet material, and accurately fit the wings to each other, maintaining the specified dimensions. The model is then disassembled and its parts are used as templates for cutting sheet metal. The cut blanks are bent until they coincide along the weld line and are welded using tacks. Next, the wings are carefully bent to the desired opening angle, complete symmetry, and the seam is finally welded.

Completely on its own

If you are just planning to buy a walk-behind tractor and need to hill up potatoes, a manual plow hiller with the possibility of converting it to mechanical traction will suit you. In this case, the flexible rope strap is replaced with a rigid rake, and the plow share with a wingspan of up to 25 cm (you can’t pull it anymore) with a lister or chisel.

Drawings of a manual hiller of this type are shown on the left in Fig. This is, in fact, a “semi-manual” unit: without modification it is suitable for traction from an agricultural winch. If its power is sufficient, you can immediately install a wider plowshare. When converting it to a walk-behind tractor, you can leave the wheel, but then two people will have to work: one drives the traction unit; the second is a hiller. This way, by the way, is more convenient: the work gets done faster, and the result is better.

If on your 4-12 acres the payback of the walk-behind tractor is not expected, then you can make (or purchase) a completely manual hiller, see on the right in the figure. Its feature is the rapid adjustment by lanyard 1 of both the size of the blade and the traction force in accordance with the properties of the soil. Basic dimensions are the same as before. case. The kink of the carrier is also the same, 5 degrees. Rake break approx. 80 degrees, and the bend of the front handles is selected according to the height and physique of the source of traction.

Note: Doesn’t it seem paradoxical to you that in an era when people are mastering the quantum world and seriously discussing the possibilities of interstellar travel, implements for cultivating the land using... human muscular traction are actively offered on the agricultural machinery market and are selling well? The slave owners of Ancient Rome would have laughed until their bellies burst.