Adjust Liquid Manure Tires on The Fly

It’s a well known concept that reducing the inflation pressure in tires reduces the potential for soil compaction on heavy equipment like liquid manure applicators.  But the tires then need to be re-inflated to head down the road back to the barn for another load.

Omafra’s Greg Stewart is working with some farmers on a system to inflate and deflate the tires as needed. They have mounted a hydraulic operated air compresser on a liquid manure spreader, and connected it to the tires. It is controlled from inside the cab of the tractor and can be operated while the vehicles are moving. On the experimental applicator all four tires are connected so the pressure stays equal. The experiment was put together over the early part of this year, and the timing is right for testing now that wheat harvest is virtually complete and the land available for manure application.

The problem is the time it takes to deflate the tires. This is an issue if the equipment is making 30 or 40 trips a day from a field, along a road to a manure storage lagoon, and back. Stewart says the inflation process can start as the tractor is coming to the end of the row, because the manure tank is almost empty, but deflating when the tractor gets back to the field takes about two minutes.