Almost 10,000 tyres a year are purchased through AF, for a huge range of tasks and vehicles. Jill Roberson and her colleagues in the Machinery team draw on AF’s specialist suppliers’ expertise to source the best product. To paraphrase a famous song lyric, the tyres ‘they are a-changing’.
Whether you are a farmer, landowner, or contractor, managing soil compaction is becoming an increasingly important science. Every small improvement that benefits soil health will have a positive impact on farm income, and your choice of tyre can be key to this.
Counting the cost of tyre-related compaction
The key impacts of badly compacted soil that come to our minds are:
- Poor root growth and crop establishment
- Reduced worm count
- Ineffective nutrient uptake by the crop
- Water management difficulties
- Reduced crop yield
Many things cause soil compaction, some are easier to deal with than others.
The good news is that making the right choice of tyres for your equipment is something that is easier for you to control. Manufacturers have used the latest tyre technology to develop products that will help.
Time for new tyre technology
New IF and VF Technology tyres are now available. They use extremely high flexion technology, engineered to offer top performance on all soil types, whilst carrying differing loads at various speeds, and still incredibly gentle on the soil.
Bush tyres: How can VF technology benefit you and your farm
Whilst having a similar width to standard tyres they have a longer profile that reduces overall weight on the soil. The technology allows you to operate with up to 40% higher load than standard tyres at the same pressure, meaning potentially fewer road journeys.
The other advantage of the IF and VF Technology tyres is improved fuel efficiency. Their construction means that you can move smoothly and quickly from field to road and back again without the need to adjust the tyre pressure. If you set the tyres up with reduced pressures for use in the field (you can reduce the pressure within the tyre by 40% compared to standard ones, even when bearing the same load) you can still travel at full road speed and not lose fuel efficiency compared with a standard tyre at road pressure.
In short, these tyres will save you time, fuel and cause less soil compaction. Unfortunately, they won’t make you a coffee out in the field, but you can’t have everything!
These innovative technology tyres are now stocked by our suppliers as both branded and own branded products.
Speak to your AF Machinery Team for IF and VF Technology and all your other tyre needs.
Jill Roberson Machinery Specialist
jill.roberson@af.farm 01603 881 940
