Moleploughing

(Videos of Moleploughing appear on their own page)

You can buy a moleplough attachment from a large agricultural machine supplier. Any that farmers own already seem to have been made by some local garage or a mate with a welder. Nowadays you might come across some ploughs specifically adapted for B4RN type work. The attachment consists of 2 main parts

a) a vertical tube about a metre long which bends at the end to point out backwards horizontally. This is where the duct feeds into the ground.

b) Some sort of strong metalwork in front of this tube to form a vertical blade to slice the ground open. This blade travels inside the ground and is dragged along by the tractor.

Nearly all types of moleplough work well, the more sophisticated ones save time and effort. There are dedicated machines made just for moleploughing. A contractor may have this type, otherwise you will not come across one.The usual type is an attachment which fits on the back of a tractor. (Tractors have a standard 3-point linkage that all farming attachments use)

Other embellishments are

a) A cutting disc which goes in front of the blade part, specifically to cut through the turf. This is intended to cut through just the top 3 inches of the ground. It does make a tidier job, but on rough ground is less effective as it bounces around. The driver can’t see what the wheel is doing, so he made need a shout from an assistant as to whether he has the plough set at the right height. (Some ploughs have another wide wheel to the side of the cutting wheel – this wheel runs over the ground, set so the cutting wheel is say 3 inches lower than this)

b) A removable back plate to the vertical tube part. This is the best addition. It enables the tractor to be separated from the duct in seconds. A solid tube means that there is a lot more feeding of duct to do through the tube and more joins needed. A back plate means you can drop a duct off or pick one up at various points very efficiently. A back plate needs good design, it needs to be very easily removable as it gets caked with mud, but the ‘tube’ formed when the backplate is on has to be very smooth so that the duct doesn’t scrape or catch. We have broken a 7mm duct when it got caught.

c) A vibrator unit. It does just that, it shakes the ploughing attachment. It helps the plough work through stony sections. It's noisy.

d) The plough attachment may be a solid item, or it may be hinged in some way so that the plough can move like a rudder. (This hinge can be a simple hinge or may have sort of damping mechanism to limit the floppiness.) This helps the plough turn and makes a neater job.

e) Not all tractors have ‘power down’. An attachment to a tractor that does not have ‘power down’ means it just hangs at the back and is held down by its own weight. When ploughing this means the attachment can ride up over rocks too easily. ‘Power down’ means the driver has the ability to apply downward pressure on the attachment to keep it in the ground.

f) Some sort of reel carrier. If a cable drum can be mounted on the tractor somehow then this saves a lot of work in pre-laying ducting out. If 2 drums can be mounted this also saves work. They need careful positioning as they can restrict access to various parts, limit visibility and add a lot of weight. Maybe as many as 3 drums would be a good idea. Being able to carry lots of drums seems a good idea, but there will always be occasions where you have more ducts to put in the ground than can be carried. Also, a village is unlikely to own as many as say 6 drums of 7mm at one time, that’s a lot of duct.

g) Weight. When reaching difficult ground the plough will wish to ride up. Adding some heavy weights may be necessary, and there have been many cases where a person has had to hang on for ballast.

h) Equipment storage. It can be a good idea to have a couple of spades and a saw available at the back of the machine. They will be needed. If tools are available, it means things that should be done actually do get done.

Some specialist machines have caterpillar tracks rather than wheels. A tracked machine is lighter and can make less mess than a tractor on wet ground, unless it does a lot of turning.

Some machines are narrower than others. This can be important, you may come across a field with narrow gateways.

Cutting disc

Removable backplate

Some ploughs were designed for other purposes. The tube on this one angles back so that you have the danger of it kinking if the lines become taut in front

This is why you prefer to moleplough rather than use a digger. The section they have dug there is a thousand times messier than the thin mole line you can only just see.

Also 10 times faster. A digger can do about 120 metres in a day. A moleplough could do 1200 including tidying a few rocks.

But the plough just doesn't work in some sections. If in doubt though it is worth giving the plough a chance. Gateways are a good example, they are often deceptive. You can try ploughing straight through to see if it goes okay, at least you will have identified which exact section needs the digger.

What happens in a Moleploughing Operation?

For Example: A simple plough across a nice-looking field from a wall to another wall a hundred metres away.

If your Moleplough has not got a cable reeler on it, or if you need more duct than it carries, then you need to lay the appropriate ducts out beforehand on the ground along your route. (If there is a reeler on the plough then you only lay out the other ducts) The duct will eventually have to be well to one side of where the plough will want to go, but to get the duct length about right, it is usually easier to lay them out along the route, and move them across after, bundling them up a bit as you go.

You need excess duct at the end where plough is starting from, since you need the duct to loop well out of the way from the machine as it progresses.

You have to decide which in direction you will be ploughing. In general, this will be the downhill direction.

You have to decide whether to lay out the duct to the left or the right of the tractor. If you are going across a slope then any duct above the tractor route will keep trying to fall in front of the tractor, so go for the downhill side. If the route follows a boundary like a wall or hedge, then you want the duct laid out on the other side of the tractor, so you have space to work.

If there are many ducts, then they may need a few bits of tape to temporarily keep control of them. When the plough starts moving, the ducts will soon get slightly out of step with each other and this tape will become an impediment and need to be broken before it gets to the plough.

The plough needs a starter trench and a finishing trench. The neatest way is to have digger create these holes beforehand – a 1m trench at the start and one just over a tractor length at the end. These need to point in the direction that the tractor will be travelling in. The starter trench is small and may be able to be dug by hand. The finishing trench can be shorter if the tractor swings through a right angle as it approaches the far wall, so the finishing trench only needs to be a tractor width rather than a tractor length. The plough can work without either of these trenches by pushing into the surface and down to begin with and just rising out of the ground at the end, leaving some careful digging later to avoid damaging the duct.

(If you were going to join the duct at the finishing wall anyway, then you could consider moleploughing from each side of the field and have your join in the middle. This eliminates the need for a digger, and just needs a bit of hand digging. It can also mean that the join is in a better place, since it tends to be stonier right next to walls, and you can choose where in the field to put it.)

Dropping and Collecting Spur lines

That seems okay going straight across a field, but often a spur goes off to the side, how do you do that?

It depends what sort of moleplough you are working with as to how neatly it is done. In all cases you could just make a join where the spur goes off. You would probably use a pre-dug hole and leave a short length of 7mm there (the tractor needs to be told exactly where to stop). This is a case where you might put a join on a bend by mistake.

If the plough has a back-plate, then you could drop off the whole length of 7mm and come back and plough the 7 in from that point (so the shape of your junction hole needs to be thought about), and there would be no join. Sometimes it might be easier to drop off the 16 and plough the 7 in first.

Picking up a 7mm spur is similar, but more likely to need a join.

It can all be done, and often is done without pre-digging any holes since it is fairly easy to dig down by hand and make holes during the moleplough phase. This is where you need a plough that has good access to the sides of the plough, so you can dig down alongside it.

The plan of action needs to be worked out in some detail, especially the direction of moleploughing that will be most efficient. And being able to quickly think of a Plan B is a useful skill.

It is sometimes a lot easier to have the ducting laid out in the field rather than along the hedge

What can go wrong?

The simple answer is rocks. A ploughing can go perfectly, but what usually happens is that there are maybe a couple of short sections where football-sized rocks get wrenched out. These normally get pushed to the side by the plough but can get wedged somewhere under the turf cutter wheel. This stops proceedings and it has to be sorted, usually by lifting the plough a bit and a few inches of reversing is also possible if someone tugs hard upwards on the duct where it enters the tube at the same time to stop the duct kinking. Then a bit of spade work on both sides will enable the rock to be pushed to one side or removed entirely.

These bits have to be sorted by hand after. They look really bad at the time but tidy up remarkably well. If there are any really bad sections, then a digger will have to re-work that part.

The build-up of grass around the front of the plough can cause it to start rising up. That reed-grass stuff is particularly stubborn. The work on the Core route into Dent that did 6 km of roadside verge had to deal with a lot of tough grass like this. So you have to keep an eye on this and be ready to sort it out with a spade as soon as you see it start collecting in front of the plough blade.

Tree roots can also be a problem and stop progress. Part of the answer is to deliberately skirt all trees where possible. Roots are fairly brittle and often break easily, but you might have a few sticking out of the ground to tidy up afterwards,

If a section looks like it might be too rocky to plough, or where there might be a collection of roots in the way then you can do a dummy run – plough a short section along your intended route without any duct. You can then decide to leave that bit for a digger, or more likely that will have cleared a way through for a successful second pass with the duct. A test run can also be used in gateways.

A typical sideways crush

When moleploughing the plough manages to just scrape past a big rock, the duct gets through but is pushed to one side and as the plough departs the rock eases back and crushes the duct. Whilst ploughing you may be unaware of anything much happening.

An almost identical problem. This one was only 2 inches deep. A long section had to be re-dug.

With the rock still in place you can see the problem

The plough just pushed through to the right of the rock. Possibly no-one really noticed this occurring.

repaired

Yes, this was moleploughed. As the plough goes through it can just about cope with this size of rock. There will be two or three halts as these are extracted and it will be sorted afterwards. There are only 2 large rocks here.

You can decide to move them away to the side of the field, but that will leave a bit of a hole. You may be able to fit them all carefully back in, as Liam is here. It will take a fair bit of evening the soil out, as the best soil will have been used on top of the duct before the rocks went back.

If the ground continued like this, then it would be time to give up and call in a digger.

Gateways are likely areas for problems and they often look worse than they are. Farmers often put rocks in these areas to counteract the muddy dip that forms, so the rocks may just be at the surface.

We had a couple of cases where we could see the field was okay for ploughing but deteriorated to a bad section on the other side where a digger would be required. In these cases, we did the ploughing first and tried to keep going as far as we could. Then we inspected the work and decided up to what point the ploughing had been acceptable and made that the point where we began with the digger.

Any services that are along the route need to be dug down to and exposed beforehand and some markers put in.

A moleplough will cut through a service fairly easily. Drains will unknowingly be cut through, but since the cut is only a couple of inches wide, some types of drain may still function fairly efficiently after having been chopped.

We once had a problem having started in a scruffy corner of a field to find the moleplough was dragging along a huge quantity of black plastic baler wrap. This had to be chopped away with a knife. If something strange is going on then stop to investigate.

If there is a suspected water-pipe or cable, then if the plough proceeds very slowly it is sometimes possible to spot the ground moving both sides of the plough and stop it in time.

Moleploughing Procedure

Picture 1 The moleplough reverses towards the starter hole. Volunteer stands centrally as a guide. He holds the duct out of the way and ready to go in the plough. He communicates with the driver and tells him when to stop. The plough can then be lowered so the back part of the plough is in the trench. (Ingleton)

Picture 2 The duct is being fed into the moleplough tube. Hold the duct in lightly with your foot at the bottom. Put the backplate on making sure no ducts are trapped. Secure the backplate. (Ingleton). Tell the driver to set off. As he sets off hold the duct ends in the ground until the tractor is no longer pulling on them.

Picture 3 A tractor at the end of its run across a field. The tractor is squarely over the finishing trench, you can see the turves to one side of the trench and the soil the other side. The duct ends have been taken out of the plough and tucked under the tractor ready for the tractor to reverse out.

Picture 4 Typical moleploughing. One person guiding the duct into the plough and watching the plough blade. He is the main decision maker, he tells the driver what’s going on and when to stop. Second person to the side bundling up the ducts as they go, and in the right position to see what is happening at the back of the plough but also looking ahead to check for any problems like duct getting near the wheels. If there was a third person they would be further in front, helping bundle the ducts together, and nearing the end point they would guide the tractor to the exact place. Anyone can shout for the tractor to stop if they see or foresee a problem.

Picture 5 The same principles here. Different plough, different personnel, but with the people in the same positions. Note the driver is half turned because he has to keep an eye forwards to check his line and watch the plough. (This is Tony Middleton’s machine – he gets a better view of the plough on that machine than on a conventional tractor. He has recently changed the seat to one that swivels for this very purpose)

Picture 6 With cable reelers. With one person. A second person has to hold the duct in the starter trench until the he feels that the plough has stopped trying to drag the duct along. But once the plough has got going one person is all that is needed. The man at the back is ensuring that the drum is rotating freely and also watching the plough. Note that because of the drums, the driver has lost a bit of communication with his helper. All these machines are noisy, hand signals are useful.

Mark out routes with odd bits of 16mm duct. If the driver can see most of the route it gives you more volunteers available at the back. Put markers on crests of humps, and at your destination. Mark any cables, or problem bits in a different way.

Things can be more complicated. More people are needed to deal with the 20 odd ducts. The route ahead is marked with white sticks. They are heading for very specific point where a side trench has already been prepared. At that point a bundle of those ducts will be taken out of the back of the plough ready to go in the side trench. The other ducts will stay in the plough and continue to be ploughed in further down the field. That specific point has been chosen because there is a BT cable we have to pass over, so we have dug down and exposed it. We will inch the plough forwards at this point and someone will peer down the hole to see that we miss it, telling driver to raise his plough if necessary. (A lot of planning and organising has gone on here ready for the ploughing)

Reversing during Moleploughing

If a moleplough gets stuck hooked under a root or a rock it sometimes has no choice but to reverse slightly to re-position the blade so that it can continue. If you just let it reverse then this is exactly what can happen to the duct.

If the plough has to reverse (which can happen frequently) then the helper at the back of the plough has to pull quite hard upwards on the duct as the tractor reverses. This requires good communication between driver and helper, because there may be a bit of shuffling back and forth to re-position. This usually works, especially when there are only a few ducts.

If you have a removable plate on the plough, you can dig down so that the duct can be taken out, pulled back and the stone or root removed once the plough has reversed. This would be a safer solution, but takes a bit longer and a bit of digging.

That looks like a typical reversing injury.

It could have occurred as the moleplough set off from this point with a stutter. (Or maybe someone shoved the metal pole back 6 inches at the other end after this section had already been buried, without thinking what might happen this end)

This one caused a lot of effort to sort out. This is a 7mm, halfway along a 1000m spur. It is a reversing injury - you can see the two major kinks , a few inches apart. What caused the problem was that the second kink had virtually cut through the duct, but the duct was strong enough not to break as the ploughing continued. This had enabled water to flood a long section of duct and so when blowing began it was impossible. Eventually an extra chamber had to be put in.

Whenever you have had a problem always try to look down the trench to make sure the duct hasn't been compromised - even a slight kink can stop the fibre blowing through. If necessary cut and join.

If the terrain ahead is suspect, try a forward run with the plough without any duct, to see what its like.

Downhill is best

The plough is a brake. This means going downhill works a lot better than uphill. It also means you can go down some pretty steep hills, if you go straight down. You normally have a choice over which direction to plough the field, the slopes will be a major part of choosing the best direction.

Moleploughing Results

(There are more photos of good results, because there is no time for photos when a problem occurs)

Some unexpected rocky sections. Looks like everyone has gone for spades to sort these out, the stones are not too large they look as though they can be sorted by hand rather than calling for a digger. If it continued this bad down the hill then we would re-do the whole section. Since we need a digger to get across the beck and up to that wall, let’s call in a digger anyway.

This is the before and after of a perfect ploughing. Once the ploughing has finished, the tractor comes back up pressing the cut down, turns at the top and presses again on the way down. Job done. At that time of year, invisible in a week.

The final act is for the tractor to ‘track it in’ - he drives back over the plough line – trying to have his wheel on one side of the cut on the outward trip and on the other side on the return journey. For this operation it is useful for a volunteer to walk ahead and rearrange a few turves that might have flipped over, to stamp on some high spots and identify any sections that need more serious work and where it shouldn’t be driven over.

Tracking in

This has not been tracked in. The tractor driver will usually be the best person to decide if he should go back over it treading it down with a wheel. Sometimes it doesn't improve it much

This one looks as though it should be tracked, that would press down nicely. The bit through the gap is too narrow to track, but stamping works.

You can see this line needs tracking. That will look good.

Perfect tracking involves pressing down each edge in turn. And maybe repeating once inspected.

Reelers

You can have drums mounted on your ploughing vehicle in various different ways. There is no satisfactory place to mount them so to some extent they will get in the way and also block visibility. They are also very convenient. They are discussed on a separate page, All you need to consider as a volunteer is that

you still will like some slack in the duct (only sometimes will it happily self-feed) and
it is another moving part to be careful of
communication between you and the driver becomes more important because visibility will be reduced

Other types of Moleplough

This is a smaller version of the tracked moleploughs. The problem with the smaller machines will be that they are too light at the back, you may end up going for a ride as ballast.

The same sort of plough mechanism can be attached to a much smaller machine than a normal tractor. We have used a mini-tractor and a hand guided Ditchwitch machine. They have the same method of action but do not get as deep and have not got the muscle to deal with problems. They may seem the ideal solution for gardens, but not always, because there can often be a lot of tree roots in a garden that will be problematic.

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