My Father and I back in the 1970's built rollover two way plow's up to 10 bottom, 20 inch cut per bottom plow's pulled behind a tool carrier that could be pulled behind draw bar tractor's. Some of the plow's had swing down packer hitch's to kill two bird's with one pass. Plow's had hydraulic reset's for Rocky ground and could be towed down the road backward's in the half rolled position by a truck at highway speed's.
To reply to some questions as to why, in very wet conditions these crawler type tractor have no grip, just sliding on top of greasy surface. By ploughing in front, one track can ride in the furrow which is drier and provides traction. Not much good for compaction, but you get your field ploughed. A comment was made on how this kills the tractor, which is of course utter nonsense.
downside is that drivers can only work short hours due to the neck strain this rig induces....... look out the front; look out the back; look front; back; front.............. it's called a 'Chiropractors' Tractor'
Well, in most European countries "theses" days, spraying chemical herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides is illegal. We also don't have chemical companies sponsoring "no till" for increased profit. Ploughing (and tillage in general) has been done here for thousands of years with no consequence, much as in Asia. American problems are more likely caused by a) generations of zero crop-rotation, b) multiple cash-crop harvests per year (every year, for generations) c) Removing all trees and stumps d) No cover-crops whatever e) Apparently they used (and probably still do) burned the "trash" after harvest rather than leaving the stubble field to fallow or till and cover-crop. And many others to be sure. Americans are about large, fast profit that is as easy as possible, and screw the consequences, the next guys can figure it out...
It just looks plumb wrong!, but 3 furs out front as opposed to the deadweight counterballast needed to hang 8 furs off the back is probably better, even if harder to manouver through a gateway.
roy hoco Not really - the tractor’s running on the unploughed land, so you’d be working the ground before the plough, which in these wet conditions would mean zero traction, not to mention being pointless.
Jay Bird when you have short fields a big plough would leave a lot of surface unplowed because its long,for example you have a 20 ft long plough and a 200 ft field.If you drop the plough when your last furrow enters the filed you have that diference between your first and last furrow unplowed.This is a lot better,or if you want a one big plough then there is the "smart plough" that drops furrows in the same line one after another as they enter the field
It's about the weight balance. Why use 8 furrow semi mounted plough and add a couple of tonne of weights to the tractor. I would guess the reason that they are using 8 and not 10 furrow is down to the soil as it does look like heavy soil to me and rather sticky too.
Am I the only one who doesn't see any actual advantage to this? And why do you people use reversible plows? Double the number of parts for almost zero advantage. One semi-mounted 8 furrow (or more, given the available horsepower) plow would take half as much time to hook or unhook and save on a bunch of duplicated components besides coming with a radically lower price tag. Since it's on tracks, traction shouldn't be a problem that's significant enough to justify any of this. What's the gain? Not saying there isn't one, but it sure isn't obvious.
Tracks of the rubber type do not provide greater traction in wet conditions. The greater spread of weight is great for lowering compaction issues, but actually make the tractor just sit there and spin in a way tyred tractor would, except sooner as they do not cut through the greasy wet layer on top to get to a drier grippier layer underneath. Reversible ploughs are more expensive as you buy double the components. But the wearing parts do half the work, so that cancels out that initial higher cost. Mainly though the advantage is that you cover a field from one side right across to the other. There is no need to try and match your work and there are no ridges or troughs like you get when you throw furrows together at the start and a gulley where you end with furrows being thrown away from each other. Those problems take some work to eradicate with following equipment. This is why you rarely see a conventional plough working these days, at least in Europe.
@@alexveldhuis6004 the weight transfer makes some sense, although the design already has a substantial front bias, at least it appears that way. The reverdible plows though... Still wondering why the equivalent of four plows and not seeing a significant advantage.. It's no big deal to minimize the dead furrow. Fill in last year's dead furrow when setting out what we call a "land" in North America and I've even used the plow to partly backfill the dead furrow anyway. Set out the width of the lands to optimize the headland travel distance against the need to make excessively sharp turns. With modern automated steering, I would think the argument for the reversible idea is weaker still. Maybe the advantage is greater when plowing a lot of sod ?? Or hillsides where it might make contour plowing simpler. Maybe those two factors are the biggest factors. In Canada and the US, there's no longer a lot of mouldboard plowing anyway, but in the old days, we just added more horsepower and more plow bottoms. Even back in those days, very few used mounted plows. Mostly semi-mounted for anything up to about 7 furrows and then some trail plows once into the big stuff.
