Types and instructions of homemade potato hillers

One of the important points that arise when growing potatoes is the problem of hilling potatoes. If the planting area is small, you can do it manually. The hilling process is quite laborious, so it is best to use a motor cultivator with special equipment. Nowadays, you can find a wide variety of devices, but most often they use a disc hiller for potatoes. The device will help you process all the beds easily and comfortably.

Types of hillers

Consider the main types of potato hillers for a walk-behind tractor. The easiest to use is a lister, or fixed-width hiller. Such a device is suitable for walk-behind tractors or cultivators with a power of no more than 3.5 hp. for processing narrow row spacings. Fixed wings are attached to the rack.

The most common equipment is a device for hilling potatoes with a variable working width, which is suitable for more powerful tillers. You can use the hiller on beds of different widths. The main disadvantage of the device is the consumption of more fuel. To speed up the processing, double-row devices are made that allow processing twice as fast.

The functionality of the previous two can replace the disc hiller. It costs more, but is more convenient and easier to use. On the market, there is a middle version between disk and analog - a Dutch-type hiller, which consumes significantly less energy, and is also cheaper. The equipment wings can be rotated vertically and horizontally. There is another option, but it is used less often - a propeller-type hiller.

Advantages of the device

Each type of hiller has its own pros and cons. When using a fixed grip hiller, keep the same row width for planting potatoes. Otherwise, you will only damage the plants. To avoid these difficulties, use a hilling device with a variable working width, but it consumes more energy. Also, such devices are difficult to use on wet soil. The advantages of the Dutch potato hiller are reasonable price, high-quality work performance, low energy consumption. The propeller hilling device qualitatively loosens the soil and pours it to the roots of the plant.

A miracle potato hiller is considered to be a disk device, the design of which allows the most productive work to be done. The processing of potatoes with a disc hiller forms high ridges, the device is very convenient to use and allows you to calculate a certain angle for work as accurately as possible. It can also be used to prepare furrows for sowing seeds and planting seedlings. But the main advantage of the disc-type hiller is that it is easy to make it with your own hands, while saving money.

How to use

Before using the walk-behind tractor, it is necessary to install wheels, a hitch and a hiller. Next, it is important to correctly set the parameters for the depth and angle of immersion. The tiller is placed on an equal surface, the hiller is lowered to the ground, attached to the hitch. In this case, there is no need to immerse the tool in the ground. It is important that the rack is vertical so that it will be easy to set the required angle.

Sometimes, at the beginning of work, the device for hilling deeply deepens or, conversely, comes out of the ground.In this case, you need to tilt the stand back or forward, depending on the problem. As I have already recalled more than once, hilling potatoes with a disc hiller is not difficult. The main thing is to correctly set the distance between the lower points of the disks. The distance depends on the row spacing. Next, we set the angle of rotation, or, as it is also called, the angle of attack. This setting ensures the potatoes are sprinkled with soil. The value of the angle relative to the vertical axis is constant and is set once. For better work, it is necessary that the wheels of the walk-behind tractor be about 70 cm in diameter and no more than 14 cm wide. Such parameters will prevent damage to plants.

Homemade hiller

Lister and disc hillers, due to their simple design, can be made independently. On the Internet or specialized literature, you can find many drawings for homemade tool making.

To make a lister hiller from metal, it is necessary to cut out halves of the product with a thickness of 2 mm according to the drawing. Next, you need to bend these halves so that their radii coincide, weld them and process the seams to obtain a perfectly even cut of the metal. If you make two such structures, you get a device for two-row processing of potatoes.

Consider a model for manufacturing a disk model for a walk-behind tractor. The first step is to choose the type of wings. Discs - steel sheets 1.5-2 mm thick with bent edges. It is important that the disks are symmetrical. If this condition is not taken into account, then the structure will go to the side, which will significantly complicate the work. The discs are welded together or bolted together. The set for the discs includes a T-shaped leader, screw lanyards that adjust the vertical axis of rotation of the discs and stands. A beam with wings serves as an attachment to the walk-behind tractor. It is very important to adhere to the proportions of the sizes of the parts. Depending on your capabilities and needs, it is possible to manufacture the device with both fixed and variable working widths.

After assembling the structure, testing can be carried out. If the wheels of the walk-behind tractor start to be towed, they need to be paired.

Thus, we examined the main types of potato ridgers. The choice of a reliable assistant for the cultivation of the garden is yours. Do not forget that the use of specialized equipment will not only make your work easier, but also contribute to an increase in yield. You can also use devices for planting other crops. Homemade hillers are not so difficult to make, the main thing is to draw up a drawing correctly and adhere to all parameters.

Video "Do-it-yourself disk hiller"

The video shows a hiller for a home-made walk-behind tractor and tells how and from what it was made.