Today’s tillage revolution has its roots in the 1950s, when horse-drawn equipment made the transition to tractors. A pioneer in the farm machinery business and a collector of antique tractors recalls how the evolution took place
by MIKE MULHERN
The earliest tillage, probably, was a sharp stick in the ground pulled by someone or something to create a furrow. Then we went to plows, then plows with coulters, then tractors and multi-furrow plows and now we’re heading to a different place where the plow is being outperformed by vertical tillage tools that like to run fast behind tractors with big power.