Plowing with R4's ?

[Verticaltrx]

I've seen a couple people mention it in this thread, but the main reason why R4 tires 'generally' aren't good for plowing is they are too wide to fit in the furrow. You really need a tire that's narrower that the plow bottom to make it work properly. Our bigger tractor that we use for plowing has 15.5-38 tires (R1) and pulls 3-16" bottoms, smaller unit is a 2-14" plow pulled with either a tractor with 12.4-28's or 13.6-28's. The tire is slightly narrower than the furrow, which makes it easy to stay in the furrow and gives better traction in the furrow.

Everyone says how terrible the R4s are for traction (which in the snow they really are), but I have found for most dirt work, light field work, etc they do fine on my kubota. I pull a 6' tandem disc and it does fine even in 2wd. Now for full time field work I agree that R1s are the best, and really you are wasting your money on any R1 tire that does not have a 23* bar angle. They pull so much better than the old 45* tires, and a good bit better that long bar short bar tires as well.

 

[pat32rf]

I had R1's (with winter chains) on my little Bota (bought used) so when I ordered my JD4300 I wanted the same (especially as the R4's were $400 more). The dealer claimed that it would take almost a month to get a unit with R1's and did a deal on the R'4 price so thats what I have. 4000hrs later I'm still glad I got the R'4s. The extra floatation is great and with chains they are fine for snow work. If I worked in fields instead of the bush things would be a LOT different.
When I was starting to grow up back in the early 60's (I'm not finished yet, according to my wife) Dad found a set of steel wheels for our little grey Massey as the R1's were getting pretty bald. Still managed to get them stuck but they were GREAT on ice, if you could stand the ride