As farmers continue to seek improving soil health, an understanding of the fundamental requirements for tyre selection has never been more critical, according to Bridgestone’s sales manager Stephen Lamb.
He believes that thousands of pounds worth of crop yield is being lost as a result and urges farmers to make tyres a priority consideration, rather than an afterthought as can often be the case. “Soil care is so important but one factor that is often overlooked is correct tyre selection. The correct tyre fitment ensures that your tractors and machinery make contact with your soil as kindly as possible, while at the same time performing an efficient application”.
“Too often we see good intent to improve soil health, but with tyre considerations being much lower down the list of prioritised items. The weight and movement of tractors and machinery across the land is a contributing factor to soil compaction, soil disturbance and yield reduction. This all impacts on a business’s bottom line. Not only is it important to understand this, but it must be acted upon in order to appreciate the significant benefit gains.
Bridgestone claim many of the considerations of tyre selection are fairly straightforward, and if growers invest the same amount of time put into selecting the optimum choice of implements for their soils, or the optimum seed varieties, they would see a positive return on that investment. So, the consideration of optimum tyre selection should too be adopted as standard practice.”
“Yet in many cases, it is not, how often do we see an expensive new self-propelled sprayer sporting row crops of a non-VF specification, meaning the sprayer will have a much greater negative impact on the farm’s soil.
Stephen added: “Firstly, we don’t want to go onto the land, but wherever we need to move soil or cut through it, an anchor point (footprint) will need to be established. With the anchor point being the soil’s enemy, we need to make sure it’s as restricted as possible but still capable of its efficient function.
“To help restrict it, look at increasing its length, which could in turn help reduce its width and reduce the tyre-to-field contact percentage. We want to have the lowest anchor-point operating pressure/ground pressure with the narrowest tyre to carry out the application.
“Also look at achieving the highest optimum travel speed. The less time the anchor point is directly in contact with the soil at any one moment is beneficial to reducing the degree of compaction generated. The less amount of compaction generated, the less the amount of costly eradication is needed thereafter.
“Once we understand these fundamental benchmarks of any field operation, we can then go on to seeing what tyre sizes and specs will best represent those benchmarks, within the framework of the tractor and its application.”
