TRACTOR PLOUGHING

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24899, 12 June 1946, Page 9

TRACTOR PLOUGHING

MR J. STURROCK REPLIES TO CORRESPONDENT “Your correspondent, Mr D. Robertson, Mount Hutt, opens up a very wide field for discussion in connexion with the compacting of the soil, and its subsequent effect on the plough,” writes Mr J. Sturrock. “This question has occupied the attention of the manufacturer for some time, and more so recently with the growing popularity of the rubber tyre on the tractor. The aim of the plough manufacturer is to get the plough to turn uniform furrows, but, as your correspondent points out, on broken or loose land there is a “dropped furrow” caused through the shape of the track or trough being altered by the furrow wheel of the tractor. It is certainly wrong to raise the front wheel in an endeavour to turn a bigger furrow to fill up the apparent depression. In doing so, the plough is tilted, and all furrows are affected. The slight increase in width would be the better way of making the depression less apparent. “Modern ploughs meet this difficulty to some extent by having a wider displacement by the mouldboard, and consequently a wider track for the tractor wheel. Even though a wider- furrow or a wider track is made, the evil of the compacted subsoil remains, and probably is the cause of many of the farmer’s troubles. Experiments are being made at present with a subsoiler which is worked automatically in conjunction with the plough lift. Unlike the old subsoiler which worked at the rear of the mouldboard, the new attachment will work in the furrow m line with the point of the share. “The undue wear in the breast of the mouldboard, mentioned by Mr Robertson is caused by wrong setting of the coulter or skeith. The extra land on the plough, if the coulters or skeiths are properly set, should be a factor in preventing excessive wear. For ordinary ploughing the skeiths should cut about half an inch on the outside of the point of the share, and be perpendicular with the beam. Skeiths set in this way, and the extra land, provide a greater clearance for the breast of the mouldboard from the