Cultipack alternative?

Was listening to some guys talk about food plots and one mentioned wanting to buy a cultipacker but they were pricey when he found one.
One of the old guys there told him said hell your driving a cultipacker , pack em with the tractor.

Never really thought about that before myself. It wouldnt be feasible on larger plots but it wouldnt take long on lanes or small plots to go over with the tractor tires.

Worth trying it, or would the tractor compact it too much?

I think you could take a 6 or 8 old mounted pickup tires that are about the same size and fill them with water (maybe partially), then slide them over a metal shaft of some kind, make a yoke attachment and pull them around a plot and it would do a fair/good job. It wouldn't be hard to just pull it from plot to plot without having to pick it up.

Anything with tires can be a cultipacker yes, but it takes a lot of passes to cover an entire field with tire tracks.

I use an old cattle gate. A log works well too. Just make sure you tie either off with something break away, like a rope. If it hangs on something unexpected, and doesn't break, can be dangerous.

Yeah, Wasnt sure if it would be too compacted or not by tractor weight. Seems like most culitpackers ive seen a weight listed on were 750-1100 # Thanks.

I've always cultipacked with the tractor ...it works great and you don't have to swap attachments

The main thing when discing is not to disc too deep. A couple inches is plenty. Drag a roll of chainlink over it. That smoothes it real good.

Yeah, this guy was discussing planting clover is what brought up cultipacking.
Most clubs disc the clover in too deep.This guy was talking about going back and top dressing with clover after the disk guy had left. Wether to hope the rain washed it in, or to cultipack it.

Smooth the plot with a harrow drag after disking then spread the seed. Drag one more time and it will cover the seed nicely.

This is what we do

You can make a cultipacker out of corrugated pipe.

What kind of drag harrow are you using? Is it a homemade or one of the heavy chained drag harrows? Pics would be nice if you have any.

Piece of chain link fence with some weight on it attached to a 4 wheeler with a THIN rope.

I use 5 tires chained in a triangle formation pulled behind an atv. Works great and you can drag it down the road between plots without tearing it up. Before we built it we did just run over some of the smaller lanes with the atv. Lot easier with the drag.

I drag a 7 ft piece of angle iron with a 15ft chain hooked to both ends. Cheap,durable and ez to move from plot to plot.

Havent thought about it too much before wether to cultipack or not.
With the way most hunting club food plots are with sticks, root balls, wads of bush hogged waist high grass and weeds from the cutting the week before, dragging is good but it will not pack seeds into good contact with soil, which a Cultipacker does.
Since clover seeds are very small but require good contact to germinate. Disking in or heavy dragging is more likely to cover these seeds too deep.

I myself have just done the light disk or some type of 4 wheeler drag to cover. But ive also seen a lot of seed left on top that didnt germinate, (no good contact?) or know of clover plots that were planted and disked in but never came up. (too deep?)

I planted 2 spots today and tried it 2 ways on each plot.
On all i lightly disked the seed mix in, then topped it with clover. I then packed half of each plot with the tractor.
Will watch it and see if can tell any difference in it.

I love my cultipcker and my fields look way better since I started using one. Sure makes a very pretty slick field when you get done

Yep

We use a section harrow to cover our seed. Does a very good job.

Old pull type section harrows were a farmer's favorite tool when I was growing up. Talk about busting clods and smoothing a field, they worked wonders. I haven't seen one in decades.

After using my rototiller to till the plot & after seed & fertilizer, I take the pto out of gear & "walk" the tiller across the plot. It acts like a mini sheep's foot. It's packs & covers great.

He ya go!!

Ours is the 3 point hitch variety.

A Firminator will let you do it all in 1 pass. We just tried the 6' RT (Rotor Tiller) version. Till, Plant, Pack.

They are hard to find.

I think I can build one about 6-8 ft wide using OTR truck tires for under $200.

I did test strips on the fields i planted the other day.
The sides that were packed by the tractor had much more coming up in those areas than did the sides that were just lightly disked in.
Gave them probably a good weeks head start if not more over the non packed side.

I built one of these a few years ago and it works great as long as you don't have a lot of rocks.

http://www.mytractorforum.com/showthread.php?t=240270

Is that a culvert pipe with concrete in it?

That is some old plastic culvert we had around camp. I had to buy 2 pillow block bearings and a 2" receiver and 6 bags of sakrete. I used scrap from our driveline shop to build the frame so I had less then $100 in building it. It works great on small fields but just not big enough for the larger fields.

What does it weigh? What is the diameter? I have a piece of new 26" plastic pipe about 10' long I've been thinking about fixing, maybe a 7' long packer, but I don't know what it would weigh to move around and what it would take to pull it, probably a small tractor.

I had to find my notes. It's 15" diameter and 44" long. I used 8 bags of sakrete and it weighs 550 lbs.

I made this one from heavy 6AWG chainlink fence wire. It is 15 years old and has been used to drag many fields. It does a great job, especially with the added weight of the tires, but it takes a good atv to pull it. We have just pulled it with a truck too.

Huh? You can buy them anytime. A quick Google search offers lots of choices.

For smaller plots I took three landscape 4x4's, changed them about 8" apart and bolted angle metal across them to keep them from rolling. Then took another piece of chain and made a hookup for the ATV. Works pretty dang good, light enough to haul.

I use a piece of metal man grate on a chain pulled behind 4 wheeler. Seems to work well

We've always just covered our seed with about a 4 ft lengt of chain length fence. Attach a 2x4 at the front and rear for weight and tie a rope to both ends of one of the boards tie a loop in the middle of the rope to attach to a ball hitch. Works good soesnt cover to deep and smooths out well after discing. Also rolls up easy to haul on the back of an atv

I use a 6', round post behind my disk while disking and covering. This is the forth year I've been using this set up. It takes longer but it does a good job. I disk and cover so the pole doesn't bounce and is in constant contact with the ground.

We used to use a chain link gate behind an ATV. In our case, the gate looked like it did a good job because all of the seed was dusted when finished. After the rain washed the dust off it was alarming how much seed wasn't covered. Maybe some weight would have helped. The crows and turkeys appreciated it though.

these things work awesome you can break the soil with the spikes then flip it over to cover and smooth the one ive used weighed about 100 pounds