Homemade Mini-Packer

Found a 10" piece of corrugated 29" long on craigslist. Picking it up Saturday.
10" was what I was looking for originally, but my neighbor had a big piece of 16" laying around and said I could have it....
You might give up some weight, but not a ton. Also, the 10" might be more manageable, as it will take 3 of us to load just the packer into a car or truck.
 
10" was what I was looking for originally, but my neighbor had a big piece of 16" laying around and said I could have it....
You might give up some weight, but not a ton. Also, the 10" might be more manageable, as it will take 3 of us to load just the packer into a car or truck.
Ya I could see the 16" being really heavy. I have an old camp on my property with an overhang. I'll just store it under there when not in use so I don't have to haul it around.
 
Ya I could see the 16" being really heavy. I have an old camp on my property with an overhang. I'll just store it under there when not in use so I don't have to haul it around.
Good call! My issue is I plant in 3 locations...helping a friend, my house, and my family's farm....and only made 2 sections of packer for those 3 spots....
Could get kinda interesting moving the parts all around..I just hope for the back fender on my car's sake that we find a good way to move it all....(only 1 of those places has a good trailer BTW...)
 
I was just thinking about that too. A friend that allows me to hunt is currently timbering and I'd like to put in a food plot or food plot trails. My dad has an atv trailer that I can always use though.
 
I was just thinking about that too. A friend that allows me to hunt is currently timbering and I'd like to put in a food plot or food plot trails. My dad has an atv trailer that I can always use though.
that would work....i am thinking of getting a neighbor or two to help me lift it into the back of my SUV..i only built 1 frame so i need to take the packer and frame back and forth between at least 2 of the places i plant
 
Found a 10" piece of corrugated 29" long on craigslist. Picking it up Saturday.
Update. So much for 10" pipe. Rare is the man that undersells what he has. haha I have some Styrofoam that I think I'm going to chop up and put in the concrete to try and keep the weight down. I bought 3 80# bags of quickcrete. Just eyeballing I'd say it would take most if not all of it. My ATV is only an old 2005 330. I'm not sure how well it will pull something that heavy.

pipe.jpg
 
Update. So much for 10" pipe. Rare is the man that undersells what he has. haha I have some Styrofoam that I think I'm going to chop up and put in the concrete to try and keep the weight down. I bought 3 80# bags of quickcrete. Just eyeballing I'd say it would take most if not all of it. My ATV is only an old 2005 330. I'm not sure how well it will pull something that heavy.

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Nice 10" pipe you got there haha..
I think I used ~4.5 80 lb bags per 26" length of 16" pipe...so if you have a fair amount of styrofoam or wood or any other junk I think that would get your weight down a bit...
Also I would make some plywood ends for the pipe before pouring the concrete...they definitely helped keep the PVC "roughly" in place and helped to keep it from leaking too bad....
I used the packer some more this weekend and it worked like a charm....now we just hope for some good rain and cool nights...
 
Nice 10" pipe you got there haha..
I think I used ~4.5 80 lb bags per 26" length of 16" pipe...so if you have a fair amount of styrofoam or wood or any other junk I think that would get your weight down a bit...
Also I would make some plywood ends for the pipe before pouring the concrete...they definitely helped keep the PVC "roughly" in place and helped to keep it from leaking too bad....
I used the packer some more this weekend and it worked like a charm....now we just hope for some good rain and cool nights...
I was thinking about cutting the pipe in 1/2 or into 1/3's just for maneuverability. My ground is very rocky with stumps and roots so I think if the sections could move up and down independently it might work a little better.
 
Had the little packer out this weekend and it worked like a charm being pulled by my little 300 cc wheeler...kinda surprised it was as easy as it was with that underpowered machine...
 
Had the little packer out this weekend and it worked like a charm being pulled by my little 300 cc wheeler...kinda surprised it was as easy as it was with that underpowered machine...
This was certainly a creative project building it from wood. My expectations of durability have been exceeded. If nothing else, it has been a good educations experience showing you the value of cultipacking. I've cultipacked small plots simply by using ATV tires. I then went to a water filled lawn roller until it cracked. I looked for a long time at craigslist before I finally found an old farm cultipacker for a good price. And when it rains, it pours. A couple months later, I fond another good deal on an old farm cultipacker so I bought it as well (I have a retirement property where I do some small plots). I have a tractor, so I was able to use a good size cultipacker to speed things up.

Ingenuity abounds! Enjoy your journey!

Thanks,

Jack
 
This was certainly a creative project building it from wood. My expectations of durability have been exceeded. If nothing else, it has been a good educations experience showing you the value of cultipacking. I've cultipacked small plots simply by using ATV tires. I then went to a water filled lawn roller until it cracked. I looked for a long time at craigslist before I finally found an old farm cultipacker for a good price. And when it rains, it pours. A couple months later, I fond another good deal on an old farm cultipacker so I bought it as well (I have a retirement property where I do some small plots). I have a tractor, so I was able to use a good size cultipacker to speed things up.

Ingenuity abounds! Enjoy your journey!

Thanks,

Jack
Thanks Jack! I saw a video online where a guy had made one and just followed it. I have only used it twice, once on our farm and once at another property last year. This is the first time I used it on my home plot and I had good plots last year with simply broadcasting and running over with the wheeler. Hoping it improves germination even more this year.
 
Thanks Jack! I saw a video online where a guy had made one and just followed it. I have only used it twice, once on our farm and once at another property last year. This is the first time I used it on my home plot and I had good plots last year with simply broadcasting and running over with the wheeler. Hoping it improves germination even more this year.
I would not expect better germination from a culvert pipe type cultipacker than you get from ATV tires. I think it just speeds the process by allowing you to cover more ground with each pass. You might see some benefit over both with a farm culitpacker. In addition to pressing seed into the soil for better seed soil contact, a farm type cultipacker puts an uneven surface on the soil with either V wheels that put small trenches in the soil or toothed wheels that put dimples in the soil. This can help, depending on topography of the field, by holding rain and allowing it to soak in rather than run off.

Regardless of how you do it, I find that the biggest improvement comes from rolling anything over the seed rather than just broadcasting it and letting nature take its course. Depending on the seed, I've seen a small improvement in germination if I get a good rain to beat it in and splash soil on it, to a big improvement if I don't get rain for a bit.

Thanks,

Jack
 
I would not expect better germination from a culvert pipe type cultipacker than you get from ATV tires. I think it just speeds the process by allowing you to cover more ground with each pass. You might see some benefit over both with a farm culitpacker. In addition to pressing seed into the soil for better seed soil contact, a farm type cultipacker puts an uneven surface on the soil with either V wheels that put small trenches in the soil or toothed wheels that put dimples in the soil. This can help, depending on topography of the field, by holding rain and allowing it to soak in rather than run off.

Regardless of how you do it, I find that the biggest improvement comes from rolling anything over the seed rather than just broadcasting it and letting nature take its course. Depending on the seed, I've seen a small improvement in germination if I get a good rain to beat it in and splash soil on it, to a big improvement if I don't get rain for a bit.

Thanks,

Jack
got the rain last night and this morning (some of it pretty hard for that pressing into the ground effect) and the seed was all clover (some of which was untreated, which makes the seed smaller than the "treated" stuff) and brassicas
 
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