Partner got his soybeans done yesterday so we figured we would tag team with the scrapers. I get to do the pretty work.
I can't tell from the pictures, are you building terraces or cutting swales. Good looking work either way, just curious.
Cleaning the ditches that drain the water from the sloughs. That field was 305 acres with about 5 miles of ditches.
I guess you could call them swales.
Not sure you can tell but that is a 6 ft high dike on the left side.
Some more ditches and a pic of the GPS screen that I see when scraping. The red line is my survey line, the purple line is the design grade, and the blue dots are data points as I'm cutting to grade.
Not sure if you can tell but that is a 6' high dike on the left side.
Around here most drainage work is aimed at slowing water and stopping erosion. I do have some experience working in the river bottoms, I will say that erosion control is easier as you have more slope to work with. What sort of grade are you cutting those ditches at? Will the owner farm through them?
Yes, most farm through them. I like from a 0.04% to a 0.07% but some I'm lucky to get a 0.02%. On some shorter ones I've had up to a 0.30% but they are short and no water comes from other places, it's just so they dry out fast. I've been told that anything more than 0.05% on a main ditch with considerable volume they can erode? Can you verify or disagree with that?
That's what's nice about my AGPS (Advanced Geo-Positioning Systems) software after I survey and design the ditch I can change the slope to whatever works the best or least amount of dirt to move.
We use .3 to .4 % for terraces. The grades you gave are going to fall about a quarter of an inch per hundred foot. Is that correct? I built a swale in the river bottoms that fell about 2 feet in 3000 or about .06% without gps. It was very difficult to get it to drain.
How many foot of ditch do you usually build in a day?
Depends on how much there is to take out. Sometimes I get a mile or two done if only 6" to pull. If there is 10-12" I can get ½ mile per day.
Without auto control on scraper it is very hard to get anything less that .2% to drain perfectly. I used to clean with a laser and no auto grade, the difference for the farmers was probably about a week later for them to get in same field that I do with GPS.
That is an interesting screen view. So your goal is to get the blue dots to match the purple? Looks like a lot of clutter to watch load after load. Can you turn off the datalog until you are close? I guess without knowing more, it seems confusing. Nice finished work in any case.
Thanks Jerry. Yes, you can turn off the capture of points. Normally though you can get done in six or eight passes. What I normally do is offset up like 0.25' then I can step down half-tenth at a time and run on auto the last five passes. Half a tenth usually is just right so no gouging or slabbing going on and you have a nice, smooth finished bottom. Most of my ditches I have enough fall off on the end after I'm done cutting the side slopes I can go through once more half a tenth below grade to really make sure the slough is going to be dry.
Sounds like you have a good system working. Thanks for sharing.
Never thought I'd be scraping in April, ever, but here we are. Water board had a project last fall. Contractor leveled all the spoil out on the state highway right-of-way. Come this spring, state says, "Ah, no." That dirt has to go. So, I get go stockpile it all. 6000 yds³. It's all in a berm along the ¾ mile of ditch. I need to put it in one pile. I bid $3/yd³. Four days, done deal. Nice little start to the season.
Percentage of grade is a funny thing and it is easy to misinterpet. 3 percent fall is 3 feet of fall per hundred feet. .3 percent is 3 tenths fall per hundred and .03 percent is 3 hundredths per hundred. Now with out percentage If you were looking at actual fall 3 hundredths per hundred would be wrote .0003, 3 tenths .003, 3 feet .03 per hundred. I'll try an example; land falls 3 feet in 100 feet distance. 3 divided by 100 = .03 = 3 percent The flattest I've found to work consistently to drain flat areas on farm work is .075 percent, = .75 of a tenth per hundred feet. Can go to half a tenth per hundred but thats about it due to the earths curvuture. Also where I am in Kansas we get some gulley washers so .3 percent (3 tenths per hundred feet) is typical for terraces here.
I bet that Cat is pulling twice as fast trying to get away from the JD pan. LOL
a Couple of preliminary pics of the quad and scraper. I'll get some better ones, I hope, if I get the opportunity to run it.
New tranny works like a dream. No issues from turbo failure yet. Now just need a little more work. Pretty quiet around here. Farm prices are not to good right now.
New drone? Cool pics. By farm prices are you talking about goods harvested?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Once you go track, you never go back. I've never been able to do such complete work, and faster besides, than I can do with the track skidder.
How do you like the Ashland scraper?
Works great when you have a lot of dirt to cut. It loads awesome with the drop-center edge. However, finish work is impossible. Not only because of the cutting edge, but the two tire design doesn't ride the slope as well. It's a good scraper otherwise. I think the Deere will outlast it because of much larger pins.