The J&D FarmBuilt Chisel Ripper provides a useful solution for deep tillage capable of breaking through hard pans
Ohio farmer Jeff Sberna saw a gap in the market place for a tool to provide deep tillage on his farm. Now, he’s looking to bring the J&D FarmBuilt Chisel Ripper to other North American farmers. The device will dig depths of up to 15” with 20 to 25 hp per shank, depending on soil conditions—the lack of horsepower required makes the device highly efficient.
“We had lower horse powered tractors and I couldn’t break through the hard pan with what equipment I had,” says Sberna. “Nothing I could get deep enough and even with a chisel plow, even with larger horse power, you couldn’t break through. It just kind of rode on top of the hard pan. I was looking for ways to use what I had to open up the hard pan soil, for better drainage.”
With help from family, Sberna started to work on the device. Several prototypes later, there are now two varieties of the Chisel Ripper available for sale—smaller five foot units which are kept in stock and larger 12-13 foot units which are built on a per-order basis. Each unit has their own advantages. The larger model includes a trash cutter on the front, while the smaller unit requires less horsepower to pull. But both versions offer the same basic benefits.
“The chisel ripper shatters the forward motion,” says Sberna. “Which lets air into the group and aerates the dirt and also allows it to pull easier and go deeper into the dirt and open up the hard pan. By spacing it out more, I leave firm dirt in the middle and I don’t disturb all the dirt—every time you go through, you leave firm dirt in the middle.”
Sberna says that the forward motion in shatter doesn’t bring up big clumps or leave big ruts in its wake. Though he’s never had a need to do so himself, Sberna says that other tractor attachments can be used at the same time as the Chisel Ripper to level the dirt or for other purposes.
“It’s different than what’s out there—it might look similar, it looks like a chisel plow, but it’s really a whole different thing,” says Sberna. “We’ve even had a dry year this year and high gravel, it helped out where areas back before we started using the chisel ripper, would never produce anything. I can remember the ground before that, there’d be nothing, now they’re helping to hold moisture and breaking down the hard patterns.”
The J&D FarmBuilt Chisel Ripper is available through AMS Incorporated www.amsincorporated.net
— Matt Jones