When it was time to buy another set of drive side tires for the F550, I went with Stratham tire's own design recaps on Michelin carcasses. They have held up fine, and are awesome in snow.
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2012 F250 4x4, 6.2 gas, 9'6" Fisher Xtreme V
2000 F550 4x4, 7.3 diesel, 9' Fisher
1989 John Deere 648D D/A Grapple for the big jobs
Wow, great reporting, durallymax! I love your format. Did you buy all those since October?
Any more thoughts on traction in various types of snow and ice?
Quote:
Originally Posted by durallymax
Picture this summer when it was brand new.
Looks like it's equipped for working at a landfill, but that looks like a farm or a capped landfill in the background...what kind of blade is that?
__________________
Past: 8.5' Diamond on 12' stake body dump 15,000lb upgraded F350, for state highways...and lack of experience.
Present: Snowbear on 2002 GMC 1500 and ancient Ariens, for personal use only.
Really? I used to swear A/T them.
POS with poor traction. Barely better than a Dunflop AT20.
OP: Look at GOODYEAR SILENTARMOR in 245 width. They're very nice tires with an aggressive-but-not-offroad tread pattern, rated for SEVERE SNOW SERVICE. They're probably the best all season truck tire for use on the snow in conditions like you describe.
If I were going strictly a winter tire, I would choose the Mastercraft Courser MSR or Cooper Discoverer M & S. Same tire.
Absolute best snow tire I have ever had and will never run any other in winter.
But, they are strictly a snow tire and must be switched 1st sign of spring.
__________________
Rock w/plow, salt shaker and vinegar.
Wicked Warnings Wired!
Wow, great reporting, durallymax! I love your format. Did you buy all those since October?
Any more thoughts on traction in various types of snow and ice?
Looks like it's equipped for working at a landfill, but that looks like a farm or a capped landfill in the background...what kind of blade is that?
Haha I didn't look where you were from, must not be a lot of dairy operations around you. That tractor is setup for packing silage. No different really than working a landfill, except its packing feed for cows, instead of trash. Pushing it into a horizonatal silo then packing it is the most economical way to store large amounts of feed. Most of the bunkers are between 30 and 120' wide by 150-250' long with 12' walls. The key is density. The higher the density, the less chance for spoilage. We aim for over 20lbs/cu.ft. The tractors are both weighted over 35,000lbs.
Heres the process if you've never seen it before.
Below is a video from Claas showing the european style. Its essentially the same concept, however they are chopping for biomass instead of feed. They are using the 970. Claas also makes a 980 with an 880hp MAN V12. Their choppers are a top brand out of the main players (Claas, Krone, NH, Deere). All of the are direct drive too. Many people can't believe there is literally a belt running from the motor to the cutterhead, just like a lawn mower. Except a slightly larger more expensive belt. Krone also uses this design. Deere doesn't like it because it requires mounting the engine transversly. However the sacrifice in their design using a 90* gearbox is about a 10% loss of efficiency. The Claas machines with heads generally cost $400,000 on up. I could go on all day but Ill stop.
Both of the above videos show corn silage which is chopped directly in the field. The heads used are row independent heads. The are basically a large saw, you can drive any direction you want to, the rows do not matter. Often times its better for soil conservation to plant a field on way but more economical to chop it a different direction.
Below are some pictures of the corn silage side of things.
Opening a field. We drive the tractors/trucks behind the chopper during the first pass through the fields. This takes less time than unhooking a wagon to hook it to the chopper, but it does require a little more skill and communication.
View from the drivers seat. Every truck and tractor carries a roll of towels and glass cleaner during silage season.
Here is an image of normal side loading. We side load on the right, as do many other americans. California operators sometimes load to the left. Most of the rest of the world also tends to load to the left. I don't have an answer why. The right side feels more natural as the controls and monitor are all there, so your focus is already on that side.
Wow, great reporting, durallymax! I love your format. Did
Any more thoughts on traction in various types of snow and ice?
Looks like it's equipped for working at a landfill, but that looks like a farm or a capped landfill in the background...what kind of blade is that?
To continue my derail on my thread below is information on the Hay and Cereal Grain process.
We chop alfalfa, various types of grasses and some green cereal grains (rye,triticale,oats) as well for feed. All of these crops along with corn silage share the same end goal. We need to chop the material into uniform size pieces (generally 19mm) and pack it tight and seal out any oxygen so that fermentation can take place. Once fermented the feed has a slightly sweet smell and a brown appearance. Same concept as sauerkraut.
For the "greens" we have to cut them first. We use two triple mowers like the one shown in the pictures below for cutting and crimping the crops. The crimping action squeezes the crop to break the waxy layer on the stem and speed up the drying process. Back in the day we would cut the hay and chop it a day or two later, now we are cutting it then following it up with the chopper in as little as 6hrs. The mower below is a Pottinger 34' mower. For transport the rear two mowers fold up vertically. We have the tractor equipped with automated steering to streamline the entire process and reduce waste and stress.
Cutting alfalfa
cutting rye
Once cut, we allow the feed to dry in the field for a while then we will go out and merge the windrows together to form larger windrows. This keeps the chopper full and reduces the number of times it has to go across the field. Ideally the more spread out you can have the windrows after cutting the better. This promotes faster dry times,. but you need a big windrow for the chopper. It all depends on the crop, we sometimes will put 120' of windrows into one, other times we will only do 50-60'. Its all about keeping the chopper between 3.5-4mph and having smooth lump free windrows going into it. The merger shown below is an Oxbo 34'. It has 3 floating sections that form a continuous pickup with switcheable conveyors in the back. For transport the sides fold up and back to make it less than 10' wide. This process is usually done at 6-12mph.
Looks like it's equipped for working at a landfill, but that looks like a farm or a capped landfill in the background...what kind of blade is that?
Continuing my derail.
Once the hay is merged, we chop it. below is a picture of us chopping hay that "got away" from us. Meaning we cut it down too fast, didn't get it merged fast enough and didnt get it chopped quick enough. On a hot dry day like that, the hay drys very fast. When it gets too dry, the chopper "gums" up. literally a gummy film starts to build up on everything, making it all less slippery and plugging everything up. We have a large water wagon that we use to pour water on the windrows to help "clean the chopper out". Generally you do not want to see any dust when chopping it.
Here is a picture of us chopping good hay. Not to dry not too wet. The tiny box you can see half way up the discharge spout is actually a moisture sensor option. It reads the moisture real time and logs it. It also has a monitor on the feedrolls to judge the gap. These two readings work together to provide a rough number of tonnage chopped. Its about as accurate as the average MPG's in your car, but the moisture meter alone is very accurate.
Ill get onto the bunker silos next but first two more pictures of the final process we use the chopper for. Something called earlage/snaplage. Its a process that you do in between chopping corn and combining corn. When we chop corn we look for around 70% whole plant moisture. When we do high moisture shell corn with the combine we are looking for 30% kernel moisture. When we do dry shell corn for sale, they charge to dry it down to 13.5%. Snaplage is done when the kernel moisture is in the high 30s. Essentially what we do is use an adapter plate to mount the combine head onto the chopper. The combine corn head is designed to pull the corn plant down and strip the ears off leaving the rest of the plant shredded on the ground. The corn head for the chopper shown earlier is designed to cut off the entire plant and feed it into the chopper. The combine head allows us to chop just the cob and kernels. This gives a product with more volume than just regular corn, but good digestibility and high feed value.
Here is the setup.
Heres a bad picture in action. Its hard to take pictures because we generally drive 6-8mph during this process.
You have much larger equipment then we have lol. We cut our alfalfa and hay fields with an 8840 CIH Swather with a 16' head. Wish we had that tractor with the mowers lol. Then we have a big V rake to put two rows together if we have someone buying the alfalfa for haylage.
Looks like it's equipped for working at a landfill, but that looks like a farm or a capped landfill in the background...what kind of blade is that?
Now onto the bunker silos.
We start with an empty bunker, then line the inside walls with heavy plastic. This is to avoid spoilage along the walls due to rainwater running off the crown of the pile. Also helps seal out oxygen. Once we finish filling we will cover the pile with an oxygen barrier. essentially large 1,000' rolls of saran wrap. Then we flip the wall covers over onto the pile and finish with a final top cover across the top. Then we cover with half cut tires, or truck sidewalls tight tire to tire across the entire bunker. Its bad work. Stinky, smelly, hot but its the only way they have found to work.
Empty bunker.
Lined walls with a little bit of hay in there already.
The guys packing the bunker. We always try to run at least two tractors. We don't drive crossways often, just for the finishing touches. Its safer than getting close to the edges going the opposite direction. All it takes is one soft spot and over the wall you go.
Always neat seeing your pictures. Compared to around here (IL/WI border) you run a lot of unique equipment/brands. But then again anything that isn't Deere, Cat, Case, or NH is out of place around here. The only thing Claas I ever see is the combines.
Do you still have the semi that if I remember right you gave hardly anything for and were working on redoing?
Looks like it's equipped for working at a landfill, but that looks like a farm or a capped landfill in the background...what kind of blade is that?
Final pictures. These are of the corn silage pile. We need more tractors for this one as the feed comes in much faster. We only chop corn silage once a year which is why we make on big pile. There is 7,000-8,000 tons in this pile.
Packing it
Photo op with all of the tractors.
Finished pile ready to be covered
Finished pile from the backside. I try to get the guys to always use the progressive wedge style where you keep an even ramp and just keep going up, versus the carryover pile where you go up a short ramp the spread the feed over a long level push. The wedge allows for more room for feed. The carryover works in smaller bunkers, but the ramp con sometimes get too steep to go much higher.
If you look close you can see a skid steer at the lower right hand side of the pile.
Wow, great reporting, durallymax! I love your format. Did you buy all those since October?
Any more thoughts on traction in various types of snow and ice?
Looks like it's equipped for working at a landfill, but that looks like a farm or a capped landfill in the background...what kind of blade is that?
To actually finish answerog the rest of your questions. No we did not buy all of them since october. The ones on the 06 jetta are on their 3rd season, the ones on my 00 jetta are on their 2nd. The XDN2s were on the Kenworth when we bought it. The Michelin X-Works XDYs, Michelin X-Ice Xi3's, Bridgestone Blizzak W965's, and Firestone Winterforce LT's were all new this fall though.
We have been lucky. Looks like more snow next week though. Just damn cold now. no extra reporting on traction yet.
The Blade is a Grouser Hi-Lift 2200. 12'. We used to use Degelman but now use the Grousers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jasonv
Really? I used to swear A/T them.
POS with poor traction. Barely better than a Dunflop AT20.
OP: Look at GOODYEAR SILENTARMOR in 245 width. They're very nice tires with an aggressive-but-not-offroad tread pattern, rated for SEVERE SNOW SERVICE. They're probably the best all season truck tire for use on the snow in conditions like you describe.
I am too biased against good years for many reasons.
Quote:
Originally Posted by beanz27
You have much larger equipment then we have lol. We cut our alfalfa and hay fields with an 8840 CIH Swather with a 16' head. Wish we had that tractor with the mowers lol. Then we have a big V rake to put two rows together if we have someone buying the alfalfa for haylage.
We used to have an 8840. First self propelled one we bought. had a 16' head as well. Then moved to a 2250 New holland with an 18' sickle head. Then onto an HW365 NH with an 18' discbine. Big mistake there. The power unit was great but the 18' head couldn't take the stress. every stone we hit we would have to drop the cutterbar and replace a section of the discbine. Got expensive. I think if we would've had the smaller head we would've been okay. Others in the area do not have problems with the smaller heads as much. We kept running the HW365 when we bough the Pottinger V10. In the process of replacing the HW365 with another triple mower though. Can't justify another V10, but possible an 8600 or Kuhn or something. This one will not have crimping rolls like the V10 does. We don't want to go away from crimping, just want to be able to have some wet hay and some dry hay to make the logistics a little better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark13
Always neat seeing your pictures. Compared to around here (IL/WI border) you run a lot of unique equipment/brands. But then again anything that isn't Deere, Cat, Case, or NH is out of place around here. The only thing Claas I ever see is the combines.
Do you still have the semi that if I remember right you gave hardly anything for and were working on redoing?
There's a lot of Claas choppers here. More per square mile than anywhere else the rep says. Great service, good performance and good reliability.
We grew up as an IH farm, CNH fell behind the times though and we switched to the new Massey 8600 series. Having some hiccups with them though and working on switching to Fendt. We do run CAT skid steers and have a John Deere 1560 drill, just bought a brand new John Deere corn planter too. used to have a John Deere chopper, caused a lot of hard feelings with us and Deere. We have a lot of Beef with them and the dealer, enough that we wont own their tractors at least for a long time. Deere as a company has a lot of work to do. Their stuff is okay, but their service support and mostly ego suck.
If we end up switching to Fendt, I'll just tell people were the shades of green farm, Deere planters, Claas chopper, Houle manure equipment and Fendt tractors. Haha.
Yes I still have the old KW. You must be on another board I frequent. I havent gotten anywhere with it yet though. Im assuming you are talking about this one?
I've never really had any exposure to most of the equipment brands your family runs. I see them in the farm mags sometimes or at a show but that's about it. When I'm up your way occasionally I do see more of what I would consider an "off brand" compared to Deere or CNH which is 99% of what I see around here.
I'm on a bunch of forums so I can't say exactly where I saw it. I'd guess dieselplace or duramaxdiesels possibly.
John Deere choppers are ok, but they have their issues. You cannot beat a Claas, they are hands down the best. New holland follows that in my opinion. John deere has too big of an ego and their prices are insane when you can buy a better tractor from case or another dealer for sometimes less then the JD with 8000 hours on it. Ridiculous lol. Oh well.
Wow! That is a lot of great information and great photos...was not expecting that!
Around here we have plenty of farms but they're small and I don't see much of how they operate. They certainly don't operate on a scale that allows them to use equipment like that.
With those half-tires weighing down the oxygen barrier, do you get rainwater collecting in them, turning them into a mosquito factory?
__________________
Past: 8.5' Diamond on 12' stake body dump 15,000lb upgraded F350, for state highways...and lack of experience.
Present: Snowbear on 2002 GMC 1500 and ancient Ariens, for personal use only.
Wow! That is a lot of great information and great photos...was not expecting that!
Around here we have plenty of farms but they're small and I don't see much of how they operate. They certainly don't operate on a scale that allows them to use equipment like that.
With those half-tires weighing down the oxygen barrier, do you get rainwater collecting in them, turning them into a mosquito factory?
the half tires hold water and make nasty stuff. not too terrible though. the whole tirea are bad. We only use them on steep slopes. They are filled with bugs, rats, mice etc. The truck sidewalls are the nicest to handle but expensive and do not stick to the slopes as well.
The tires sit on top of the main plastic layer. The oxygen barrier is a thin layer put on before the top cover. All of it is cut back a couple feet at a time for feedout and thrown away. We get together with a couple relatives and just order a semi load each spring.
We milk 700 cows at our home farm and another 600 at another dairy. All jerseys too.
Here in Rhode Island, big corn production means a 2 or 3 row head behind a 1086 size tractor. Your pictures remind me of how penny anti we are.
as in Pull behind combine pulled by an IH 1086? Wow. Normal farm around here is between 2-3k acres. Most around here have 6 or 8 row heads. Hell there is one farmer near me farms 15k acres, runs a 24 hour operation in fall, and has 24 combines, all of them traded in after 1 year of use. He runs all 8 row chopping heads, except for his new cat combine, that things got like a 12 row chopping head, and I've heard he can get up to a 16 row head for it lol.
as in Pull behind combine pulled by an IH 1086? Wow. Normal farm around here is between 2-3k acres. Most around here have 6 or 8 row heads. Hell there is one farmer near me farms 15k acres, runs a 24 hour operation in fall, and has 24 combines, all of them traded in after 1 year of use. He runs all 8 row chopping heads, except for his new cat combine, that things got like a 12 row chopping head, and I've heard he can get up to a 16 row head for it lol.
no hes referring to a chopper. Sounds like you live near the grain belt where they dont exist.
your stats sound a little of unless that guy is doing a lot of custom work. 24 combines is severly overkill for 15k acres. 3-5 combines could easily support that many acres depending on conditions.
Im guessing the guy runs Deeres? Theyre big into Multi Unit Deals with the bigger farmers. They prey on them hard. The way the deals are setup generally is that the farmer gets a new fleet every one or two years.
Almost sounds like boyds but theres a lot of similar operations at that size.
The Lexion combines will support 16 row heads and even they become too small for thr big models.
He is right . Grain production is almost non-existent in RI. Corn is chopped for silage. A few small farms raise flint corn for meal. One farmer I know bought a small combine for harvesting flint, but sold it after 2 years.
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