I thinking about investing in a Ground Hog Max. I'm wondering if anyone has any solid facts or opinions on this piece of equipment? Thanks guys
I have one of love it, disked this area which was a total of about a half of an acre in 45 minutes. The key is to make sure area is sprayed with roundup and weeds are killed, that is key. Also to put an after market receiver on your atv, my atv is a Polaris 500 sportsman and it works great. Start by setting the groundhog max at a depth that will just start to dig up soil, after hitting your plot and getting it loosened up, you can then set your max lower to dig even deeper. I have car ramps I use and do my plot by myself. If your plots are a half acre or less I would say go for it. Also the faster you go the better it works. Scoot
Awesome thanks scoot! If all goes well we will be upgrading our 4 wheeler at some point to one that can handle one of these, and I've heard nothing but good things!
Thanks Scoot! I appreciate your tips and feedback. And by the way that food plot looks great! Good luck this season!
I've got a GroundHog Max. Overall it's a great implement, but it will not do everything a full size tractor with 3 point equipment will do. You can save a bit of money buying from SideBySideStuff.com. With their free shipping it was about $80 cheaper than anything else I could find. I got mine for $296 shipped to my door. I've got a roughly 1/2-3/4 acre plot (see video below) that I did with mine. This spot was tilled a few years prior and was covered in shoulder height goldenrod and other heavy growth. After two separate applications of gly and almost a month to rot down, I was able to till this in roughly 45 minutes or so. [video=youtube_share;qDq_SKJeBl0]http://youtu.be/qDq_SKJeBl0[/video] I had two other plots that were covered in native prairie grass that had been sprayed about two weeks prior to trying to turn. They were on higher ground and much drier than the plot shown above. I was unable to really get any significant ground turned with the GroundHog Max even when I was setting it to cut pretty deep. I suspect if I had sprayed several times over the summer and never allowed the grasses to get that mature it may have worked, but I actually overheated my ATV at one point trying to get things turned. One last suggestion I have is that it's REALLY important you have the correct receiver on the back of your ATV for this disc. You can easily ruin the receiver and bend the frame on your ATV if you aren't setup right. I have an 06' Grizzly 660 and everything I found said that the receiver being sold on eBay (click here) was the strongest on the market. I ruined this receiver in about 10 minutes with the GroundHog Max and luckily I realized it before I bent my ATV frame, any longer and I'm certain I would have ruined the frame and had a really big problem. I contacted the guy that made them and he said that he sells a different version that has an extra gusset and deeper nut welded inside that is much stronger and designed specifically for people using the Groundhog Max. He only sells this version on his website (click here). I ordered that version and it held up beautifully for me. I'm not affiliated with this guy at all, actually a little PO'd with him since I had to buy two at full price to get the right one, but the receiver is significantly better built than anything else I've seen. Hopefully someone can learn from my mistake and get the right one the first time and avoid a bent frame.
I own it and have used it the last 2 seasons. This thing is the best disc implement on the market IMO. It just works. We have tried 2 other brands (impact implements and ?) They both sucked. With in minutes of using the goundhog max i knew it was a keeper.
Thanks headstrong and Rick James for the comments! I'm hoping this GroundHogMax helps me expand my foodplots! It looks like a great product.
