[Farmall] m

[Grant Brians]

Traditional flood and furrow irrigation worked similarly but different. 
Flood was used on Alfalfa, orchards, and in one area of the central 
valley Corn and Milo. You put up a berm and then flood between berms. 
The berms originally were all done with a check disc - basically a 
tandem disc with the blades set to kick soil into a ridge pulled by 
horses or later a tractor. Then the area in between might or might not 
be disced toward the berm (usually called a check). The water then 
headed down the alley created by the berms.
      Furrow irrigation was the most common means of irrigation and 
meant using a lister to create beds with furrows. Then the seeds were 
planted either before or after irrigation on the beds.  In furrow 
irrigation, the narrower the furrow, the better control over the water 
and the lower the amount of wasted water. In flood irrigation, you want 
to avoid compacting any more area than needed and depending on the crop, 
the same constraint  of wasted area applies.
      Single front wheel tractors had two distinct advantages for row 
crop farming whether vegetables, beans, corn, melons, berries, seed 
crops or otherwise - first the steering was extremely precise allowing 
the front mounted cultivating knives and other tools to pass very close 
to the plants for maximum weed control to limit hand work to a minimum. 
Second, compaction of the center furrow also occurred, helping move more 
water into the plant beds.
      Wide front tractors have the advantage of minimizing the amount of 
area compacted, although in winter usually farmers would use crawlers to 
eliminate compaction and allow entry faster after rain to plant the 
earliest crops. See pictures of IH and Oliver 60" and 80" track 
crawlers, especially the Olivers were very common in the Salinas Valley 
and Southern California vegetable production areas. The only higher 
production IH crawler for the purpose was the Farmall 340 with tracks. 
Oliver had the OC-6 which was an Oliver 77 with steel tracks.
      Now, with Sprinkler and drip irrigation, the advantages of narrow 
wheels with high clearance like the 3 JD6430's that I have equipped with 
54" and 46" rear tires or the Oliver and New Hollands with 42" and 46" 
tires really comes to the forefront since no one makes tricycles any 
more. The common wheel widths in the Midwest on these tractors are 16.9" 
or 18.4", but here we are using the metric or inch equivalent of 10.1" 
to 13.6" at the very widest, with 11.2" being quite common on row crop 
vegetables or fruits. There are even 9"x42" wheels on some of the 
cultivating tractors.
      We use flood irrigation only in our orchard and I have never used 
it for anything else because we do not have canal water like in some 
areas. Furrow irrigation I can do and it is efficient for some crops, 
but I do not have any irrigators other than myself who know how to do it 
correctly and efficiently, so like nearly everyone in our local area we 
do not perform it anymore. More and more drip irrigation is performed 
locally along with its variant of micro sprinklers for orchards. Our 
main irrigation method is sprinkler using aluminum pipe and small impact 
sprinklers. Some of my pipe dates to the 1940's and some is as recent as 
the last several years. Our preferred sprinkler models and manufacturer 
are Weather-Tec heads made in Fresno California as they are more durable 
and are rebuildable unlike the Chinese heads. The Mexican Rain-Birds are 
ok, but they do not hold up as well and actually cost more to buy than 
the California made ones. Briefly when the Chinese cornered the Brass 
market a few years ago the California heads cost more, but they do not 
anymore.
                  Grant Brians - Hollister,California farmer
p.s. I don't know the exact number of sprinkler pipes I have, but I have 
accumulated 14 brands and we solid set well over 200 acres (maybe 240?) 
of the 320 acres I farm at a time. I think I might cross post this on 
the ATIS list too....
       On 11/25/2016 5:26 PM, John Hall wrote:
> Grant, guess what I was trying to say is that the double front wheel
> setup is probably the most common across the US. Remember, I'm in NC,
> not the Midwest. Outside of a few F-12's, I rarely can recall seeing a
> single wheel setup on anything--It definitely makes it a more desirable
> collector tractor by being so odd.
>
> Regardless of whats most common, how come narrow fronts don't work well
> for irrigation? I'm thinking you guys have ditches or canal's for
> irrigation, do you flood the fields or do they cause issues trying to
> cross ditches? We don't see very much produce farming here. Whatever we
> do have would be watered the same as tobacco---lots of alum pipe laid
> out temporarily. Old school method was to have individual guns in the
> field. 30 years ago that gave way to "rain reels"--huge reel of pipe
> with a traveling gun. It was a lot faster to setup! I've seen a couple
> of the big metal overhead traveling irrigation outfits in the eastern
> part of the state--its very flat there.
>
> John
>
>> John, I hope that you noted I said that in CALIFORNIA that the dual
>> center wheels are rare.... I realize that in places where irrigation is
>> not the norm  that setup was indeed the norm, but it does not work with
>> irrigation or the hills we have. I actually drove one of those midwest
>> setup tractors before I ever owned my first tractor (a 1949 Oliver 77
>> three wheel tricycle that we still use) when I visited my great uncle in
>> Illinois. The point of my post is to remind all of us that there are
>> differences between areas in farming and equipment practices.
>>
>>         By the way, I too have used the 90 degree turn to load a tricycle
>> tractor as noted by mr. Puckett. It is a bit odd, but it works and is
>> actually safe for an experienced operator. We still have and use a
>> Farmall 240 tricycle, two Oliver 77 tricycles and converted one Oliver
>> 77 tricycle to factory wide front. The Farmall 100's and the 140 are
>> wide front of course as they only ever came that way.
>>
>>                        Grant Brians - Hollister,California farmer
>>
>>                     Grant Brians
>>
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