Turf vs R1 vs R4?

[s1120]

<font color="red">I have a low swale of very wet land that completely bisects my property, which I call the Oozama Ver Boten. I must cross it to get to the bulk of my acreage. I also want it mowed. </font>

I also have a mucky damp spot on my land. The R1's work for me, but now I have a problem with the front tires packing up with mud.[think making a snowball /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif] This stuff is so sticky that once it's on there, it stays. I am still searching for something for the front of my Ingersoll,[may get bar tread and reverce them] but I am hoping 3 ribs will work for my N.

 

[Boondox]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Glenn, you must really like tires.
)</font>

No, I think he likes research. I can relate to that!

Pete

 

[F350Lawman]

For those not familiar with my saga, I have a low swale of very wet land that completely bisects my property, which I call the Oozama Ver Boten. I must cross it to get to the bulk of my acreage. I also want it mowed. So I deliberately go in there with my R4-ed B2910 over and over. If the R4's break through the "surface tension" of the vegetation, they will completely fill up with mud in one revolution and will not shed the mud. At that point it is hopeless. Have been buried 16 times. Had to call tow trucks to get me out 8 of those times at considerable expense. Hence my entire tractoring focus for two years has been on getting bigger tires with better wet soil performance, so I can cross and work in the Oozama. Yet I don't want unnecessary imprinting or scuffing because even much of my non-Oozama land is soft year-round.

I remember your story.. boy you are one stubborn son of a gun. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

You need to be researching French drains NOT tires. All the research in the world on tires isn't going to help. You are approaching the symptom not the real problem.

I have a similar problem though to a lesser degree. My property is about 8 ares flat and then it slopes down and to the left (if you're facing the house). That corner is 90% wet and real messy. This includes the corner of one of our horse pastures, a "lawn' area and near my leech field. Come the fall I am either buying the backhoe or renting one and putting in several hundred feet of French drains. I am going to cut across the very beginning of the slope just in front of where the water gathers and run the drain right into the woods on the extreme far side of my property.

This also is your solution, the tires are just going to make an obviously bad situation marginally better. Renting a backhoe, buying a couple hundred feet of piping, some gravel and some of that geo-fabric isn't going to cost anymore than super-duper tires and rims not to mention 8 tow truck calls. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

You must admit defeat during this battle with the Oozama , regroup and counter attack with a drainage solution. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

For now I have tried the solution you posted about in the past, digging little runoffs with the FEL.. It has helped in the corner of the horse pature. When I was doing it I was thinking of your post, you were inspirational /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[_RaT_]

We look forward to the full report and appreciate the effort. I just need my tires to wear so some day it will happen, the fronts will go first and the rears, who knows, they wear like iron.

 

[glennmac]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( You need to be researching French drains NOT tires. All the research in the world on tires isn't going to help. You are approaching the symptom not the real problem. )</font>

Lawman, you are spot on correct, and I know that. The ultimate solution is to dry out the land. That, however, presents certain technical and bureaucratic challenges.

The worst case is that, for some reason, I am unable to drain the land. In that case, I need a bigger tractor with better tires than my R4 2910 to be able to get around and mow what I can.

All the other cases presume I somehow drain the land with minimal impact. To do so myself, I needed a bigger tractor in any event. You will note in my updated profile I have gotten a 9 ft. backhoe with my new tractor as well as a 4n1 bucket and a rollover scraper. So, as long as I was getting a bigger tractor anyway, I continued my tire research in parallel.

I will now have all the equipment I need to approach the drainage issue, and I am sure I will be coming back here for thoughts and help on that.

In the meantime, I did want to report just on the radial tire research for the benefit of others, and my enthusiasm and imminent tractor delivery sort of caused me to jump the gun in the middle of this thread.

The biggest challenge was finding the proper front tires. Several radial rears are available that will work. The front tires are the ones that bury first in mud and are the ones that also scuff and imprint lawns. Therefore, I wanted a front tire that had a deep agressive R1W tread but which was also as big and wide as possible to get maximum flotation and minimum footprint pressure. But I also had to live within the constraints of the 4WD ratio calculations, available Kubota rim sizes, and physical interference problems with the Kubota FEL supports.

I finally found that the smallest Michelin XM108 made was being imported into the US this August. It was ideal except for some solvable loader interference that I have documented with pictures.

Attached is a closeup of the XM108 next to the Titan R4 on a Kubota L3830. You can see how much taller and wider the Michelin is, and how much deeper and more aggressive the lugs are. Yet, because of its size and because it is a radial ply that will squat flat, manufacturer specs and calculations show that it will have a much bigger, flatter and shallower footprint than the R4 and hence will transmit less pressure per square inch onto the ground. Preliminary tests at Woodbury Tractor confirm this.

The real world test happens Sunday upon delivery. After a few glamour shots, I will drive it straight into the Oozama to where I have completely buried my 2910 many times. If Bob Wolff brings a winch and allows it, maybe I will drive in my departing 2910 right next to it and have a head-to-head mud pulling contest.

 

[F350Lawman]

I can't wait to see your action shots when you hit the ooze!

I didn't realize you got new equipment. That is great that you now have the tools to do somem drainage work. I am looking foward to reading your posts, perhaps I can gain some insight into my own situation.

I will say that even just doing some grading and minor trenching with the FEL has helped my alot.

 

[_RaT_]

Wow Glen, that tire is considerable looking. The tire must work, but man on my L3830, there is a whisker of room between the loader and the R4 I have. Now you have me really curious how this was accomplished. I did not realize you got the new tractor until this thread. The last I saw you were trying to get the ROPS/Folding ROPS figured out. I want to check your profile now to check into the hoe and other things you have. Thanks for the update. Rat. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Neophyte]

Glennmac,

I found this picture on the Carver Equipment website (see attachment). It was in their implement index (4th row, 4th column) and was labeled "Bar Turf" tires for the B series.

Is this tire the same, similar or completely different from the R1Ws you have? It looks similar.

 

[glennmac]

I doubt very much that it is an R1W. The definitional difference between an R1 and an R1W is that the R1W tread lugs are 30% to 50% deeper than R1 lugs. Hence, an R1W is just an R1 with deeper tread to get extra bite in wet soil. (The "W" stand for "wet soil application".) An R2 is defined as a tire with even deeper lugs than an R1W.

What Michelin (and a few others) has done with some of their radial R1W tires, such as the XM108 and the XM27 hybrid tire, is to make them much wider than standard R1 and R1W tires to increase flotation. The theory is that the high flotation big footprint will keep you on top of the surface with low pressure on the soil, but if you break through the surface to underlying wet soil the deep lugs will give huge traction.

I think the so-called bar turf is just a shallow lug R3 with bar-shaped lugs spaced farther apart than the typical close tread pattern on an R3. I had them on my BX and wouldnt repeat that decision. They imprinted ground more than the normal turfs, and the lugs were too shallow to provide any significant difference from turfs in wetness.

 

[F350Lawman]

So how did the test go?????