Year-Round Tire Maintenance, Air Pressure Vital For Northwest Farmers

Whether it’s harvest, planting, or moving from field to field, tires can make an operation run smoothly, or make simple tasks take all day.  Greg Jones, Senior Manager for Global Field Engineering at Firestone Ag said one of the most important thing for farmers and mangers to know is how much tractors and implements weigh.

“If you know what that weight is, then you can calculate the per tire weight and then from that use a load table and actually determine ‘OK, what pressure should I be running to carry load?’.  So, that type of preventive maintenance can keep you from having down time, because what we've seen is when you overload those tires, what you've done is you've asked that tire to carry the load and what's carrying the load is the air," Jones said.  "The air carries the load, and the tire is merely a vessel to contain the air. But when I overload it, the air has done all it can do, and now I'm asking the tire to actually carry that, and it deflects the sidewall in a way that's not good for the sidewall and you'll end up with lower sidewall separations. That's a telltale sign that you've overloaded it and that will lead to some type of failure in the field if it's left unattended.”

Know The Weight Of Your Equipment

Jones said if you don’t know the weight of your implements, he encourages farmers to take time and run those implements across a scale, so you have numbers to work with.  When the weight is known, Jones says the next thing to focus on is the tire pressure.

He said many growers typically don’t think about tire pressure, or just inflate the tires to the max.  Jones added proper ballasting is key.

“What we're doing there is we're trying to teach them that it's really important to ballast the tractor, understanding the amount of weight you got on the front axle, the amount of weight you got on the rear axle and set the air pressures and the load appropriately," Jones said.  "So, when you do that, that's when you're optimizing your time and really that's helping you in a lot of different ways because when you get that optimal footprint from ballasting and getting the right pressure, that's where it translates into the field where you are getting that best footprint, the best footprints, keeping you from getting the tractor slippage.  If you're not slipping, then you're not wasting time. That's time in the field and you're not wasting fuel in the field.”

Firestone Hold Field Days To Help Farmers, Managers

Jones noted that to help farmers understand the importance of proper tire maintenance and air pressure, Firestone will host field days.  Learn more about Firestone Ag by visiting their Website.

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com