How to adjust my tractor to a slow crawl? (0.0378 MPH)

[Quest85]

Greetings all;

Thank you for reading my post. I am a farmer in Northern California, on the outskirts of Silicon Valley. I am looking to find a method of customizing my tractor to move forward at a very slow crawl. The reasoning for this is that I am adapting my equipment to be able to use steam to clear my fields of pests such as soil nematodes and weed seeds. This can be accomplished by a modified rototiller that can cultivate the soil with steam injected until the soil temperature reaches 180 degrees. This can only work if the forward moving tractor moves at about a 3 foot per minute speed. Can anybody make a suggestion? I currently use a Kubota M8200 however I am also in the market for a New Holland TK4030.

Thanks
Danny

PS currently the rototiller will be hydraulic powered.

 

[RoyJackson]

You need a tractor with a creeper gear....
BTW, is your Kubota a gear or HST?

 

[JRP]

Can you put very small tires and wheels? How slow can you go now?

 

[Quest85]

Hi Roy!

Thank you for your reply. I was looking at the creeper gear option but based on the data I was looking at, the slowest speed would still too quick for my application, I believe it was .34 mph, I could be wrong. I also don't think my tractor has a hydrostatic tranny. Thanks again!

 

[RoyJackson]

About the only thing you can do (without getting into the tractor's gearbox) is run at a lower RPM...but that might be a problem using a rototiller.
If this concept is something you're purchasing, you could ask the seller. If it's something you developed on your own...well, then you need to determine if customization is feasible. Getting into a tractor's gearbox isn't cheap and you may have to design (or have designed) your own gearing for 1st gear, low range (I'm assuming your B8200 is a gear tractor with 2 or 3 ranges).
Since you are looking for a newer tractor, this could be a point of discussion with the dealer.

 

[JRP]

I think what you need is called residence time. This is how long the steam is contacting the soil. If you had longer equipment then you might be able to go faster. attached to and behind, r dragging lengths of 10 foot perforated pipe submerged in the soil. The 10 ft pipes will be adding steam as all 10ft drag thru, so you have more time you are adding steam. You might be able to travel 5 times faster. Trying to edit text with ipad sucks.

 

[alchemysa]

This can only work if the forward moving tractor moves at about a 3 foot per minute speed..

At that speed it will take 2 hours to travel just 120 yards. You are going to have a huge diesel bill.

I suggest you need to separate the tasks. Get the tilling out of the way first then park the tractor and use some other far more economical way to power and move the steamer.

 

[skyhook]

Thats just a little over one inch per two seconds, thats pretty slow.
Is there anyway you can increase the temp and injection pressure instead.

 

[Brad_Blazer]

I agree you need to calculate costs on this method. If you are using any kind of fuel that isn't free to make steam it sounds like a lot of money.

I did see an old trencher based on a JD industrial tractor that had a hydraulic motor drive the transmission when trenching.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Whoever thought up that contraption was not to informed about speed of equipment. At your 3 feet per minute, it would take over 29 hours just to go on mile. Nothing is going to go that slow without some major gear additions. What ever you finally got to move that slow and still be able to furnish PTO speed either mechanically or hydraulically would be burning at least 3 tanks of fuel for that one mile + thousands of gallons of fuel to make the steam. Besides that, you would be all year doing even a small section and that much steam would be really expensive to produce. I think you had better look at some other viable way to kill your nematodes. If it is organic farming that you are trying to do, you couldnt price the produce at 10 times the price of other vegetables and break even on the cost to make that much steam.

I think your contraption needs some additional design work prior to trying it in the real world. You would have to make it able to travel at least .38 MPH as that is about the slowest any commercially made tractor will go, so 10 times faster than your current steam injection equipment is capable of generating. Even at that speed of 3 hours to go 1 mile, I still think the cost of the steam is going to be too much to be economical for a large area.
What you may be able to do with a gear tractor with creeper gear is make multiple passes that allow the soil to warm up a bit with each pass. The dirt will hold the heat in for quite a long time and each pass would add more heat till you could finally get the temps you want. That and adding more steam generation capability at a higher temperature would also help. Still going to be hellishly expensive.