Taking the pressure of soils

The Sustainable Soil Management events are the latest in a series of Farm Family Key Skills (FFKS) workshops for farmers, farm family members and employees.

They are being held on Tuesday 31 July at CAFRE, Greenmount Campus and on Thursday 2 August at CAFRE, Enniskillen Campus.

As weather patterns change and working windows appear to get shorter our soils are being put under increasing pressure. Increasing size of machinery to make the best of the short weather windows and the necessity of trafficking wetter soils to meet cropping and contractual deadlines is compounding this problem. 

To lessen this damage to the soil, correct tyre set-up is vital to minimise the impact. To correctly set-up tyres, it is vital to know the max weight that will be carried by the tyre and the max speed it will be travelling at. These two facts can then be used in accordance with tyre manufacturers hand books to determine the minimum pressure that the tyre can be safely operated at.  Keeping tyre pressures as low as possible can help reduce some of the damage to the soil in difficult conditions. High road speeds require higher pressures. However if facilities are available to re-inflate tyres when leaving a field before road use, then this provides a lot of potential to reduce tyre pressures for field work, where speeds are generally slower, hence reducing the impact on the soil further.

Correct tyre set-up has been the subject of recent arable Business Development Group (BDG) meetings and will also be a topic at the upcoming CAFRE Sustainable Soil Management events which will be held at Greenmount Campus on the 31 July and Enniskillen Campus on 2 August 2018 with tours departing every 20 minutes from 11:00am to 6:30pm. 

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