Crawfordsville, Arkansas | AGB - 1/1/2013 10:57
Trying to create compaction?
A gallon of water is heavy. A field that has had a flood held on it all growing season of 4-6" has had 100,000 to 150,000 gallons per acre of water sitting on it. Lots of weight there. Sorta compacts things. We hold a 6 inch flood on our rice. That's 1.35 million pounds of water per acre.
We have rolled rice fields with tractors with tracks, floater tires, rice and cane tires, fat Michelin metric tires, and skinny R1 tires. Haven't been stuck yet. Of all of them the best was a tractor sitting on 18.4x46 deep tread R1 Firestones and 18.4 x34 on the front. Flat amazed how that tractor would go in the mud. I figured we would bury it right away. We kicked the mfwd out of gear a few times and it kept right on going. The worst was the Quadtrac. Cleaning that mess out was a 2 day job for 2 guys. I wasn't in on choosing that tractor for the roller and I sure was mad when I saw it out there in the field. I knew what was coming.
And yes, the wetter the better. During a rain is great cause it helps keep the windows and the tractor clean. Dirtiness of the tractor is all on the operator. My dad can run it all day and not have much mud at all on it and put another guy in it and within an hour they are calling wanting winded and paper towels to clean the windows cause they can't see. |
Rolling field in mud north of Memphis tn
