Now this is a tractor!

[Hay Dude]

It happens. I have gotten stuck where you cross a wet spot and there’s a dry spot just a few feet ahead.
You think you can make it

But you don’t quiiiiiiiite get there

Arghhhhh

 

[LHF2019]

I agree; in this case there was no excuse for burying it that deep.
The old adage applies, when you find yourself in a hole_ stop digging.

Did you watch the video? I finally did. I see nothing wrong. Sometimes the bottom just falls out. Looks very heavy in clay. Once your in your done.

Plowed ground but similar situation. Bottom falls out. Unhooked implement, pull tractor out then use chain from tractor to implement to get it past the wet hole.

 

[LHF2019]

Poor decisions were made.

Based on?

 

[LHF2019]

Eyesight. At some point someone made an irreversible decision that resulted in that machine being buried. It doesn't have to be intentionally bad; the decision may be nothing more than heading out into a wet field that one has worked a million times before.

That tractor can't get itself stuck, just as much as a firearm can't commit a crime.

But if the ground all looks the same from the seat you won't know until to late. You don't get a choice when the bottom falls out. Had they been half a tractor width on either side that video may not have ever been made. Not the tractors fault and not the drivers. Like I said been there done that in my pictures above. The entire field worked the same until that pass I got stuck in. If it had looked irregular compared to the rest of the field I would have had the opportunity to be more cautious.

Think of it like the ground opening up from a natural underground cavern and swallowing a house. Who's fault it is it....nobody's.

 

[Sportsman762]

Sometimes the bottom just falls out. Looks very heavy in clay. Once your in your done.

I have a swamp in the one field. Your fine as long your on top. Once you break through the grass your sitting on the frame. Its annoying, and it sucks getting the tractor out. However its fine most the time.

The larger the tractor, it seems the quicker they will go down. I know I was surprised how quick I would stuck in the heavier 20k tractors compared to my 7k Massey. I image that a 40K Big Bud 435 would go down damn quick compared to Kioti that weighed 6.8% of it. The ground "appears" solid around it despite it obviously not, and I do not see any big piles of mud behind the wheels that would suggest a light stuck then and idiot trying to get out. It looks like the operator went down, gave it a side wiggle that works great at unsticking articulated tractors, then stopped. There is some small mud piles on the side of the machine that suggests a wiggle was tried. That is what my eyesight and experience is saying. I was always glad I never sunk my friends JD 9400. Its easy to arm chair quarter back, but going out there and doing it and encountering the problems yourself is different.

 

[RayIN]

Watch the video again, and you'll notice the speaker knows about the fields soft spots.

I once worked for a large farmer, this time driving his big Ford 4WD pulling a 30' disc. He told me to disc in 2WD and If i felt the rears loosing traction or noticed the slip gauge reading more than 15% to engage front wheel assist until i got past the soft spot.
That happened twice in one field, and front wheel assist worked exactly as he described to prevent getting hung-up.

 

[LHF2019]

Watch the video again, and you'll notice the speaker knows about the fields soft spots.

I once worked for a large farmer, this time driving his big Ford 4WD pulling a 30' disc. He told me to disc in 2WD and If i felt the rears loosing traction or noticed the slip gauge reading more than 15% to engage front wheel assist until i got past the soft spot.
That happened twice in one field, and front wheel assist worked exactly as he described to prevent getting hung-up.

Correct. What are you saying? I have fields that have soft spots. And can go through them just fine. But then .......................done. Why? Springs move, tile lines seep, veins appear. All the history can't prepare for something you still can't see underground.

So he says soft spots. Are they temporary, permanent, weather related, infrastructure related. Again when it is go time you go and make the best of it.

There is a difference between wet fields and soft spots. It is the soft spots that will get you. A wet field you stay out of.

 

[LHF2019]

I have a swamp in the one field. Your fine as long your on top. Once you break through the grass your sitting on the frame. Its annoying, and it sucks getting the tractor out. However its fine most the time.

I did the same thing this past summer. Dry spell and had the opportunity to brush hog the swamp. I pushed my luck and needed a 2nd tractor.

 

[RayIN]

Speaking of wet fields;
Sometimes "geter-done" doesn't work well, ang gets expensive, as witnessed by this stuck sprayer.

 

[EddieWalker]

I have an area on my land that I will not drive anything over from the beginning of Spring, until the Summer heat dries it out. It looks fine, and parts of it are solid, but the areas that will swallow you up are spread out all over there and it's too risky to take the chance.

 

[MH8675309]

I've never seen a Fendt in person, but from everything I've read, they are about as good a brand as there is.

We see them here in Michigan. There are some huge Dutch dairies here and they use these foreign made machines. I saw a three headed Krone Mower that looked to be cutting at least 8 mph. They're common too. I have an 8 ft three point Krone mower I use for cutting hay and its well made and fast

 

[Hay Dude]

We see them here in Michigan. There are some huge Dutch dairies here and they use these foreign made machines. I saw a three headed Krone Mower that looked to be cutting at least 8 mph. They're common too. I have an 8 ft three point Krone mower I use for cutting hay and its well made and fast

Krone is the Fendt of Ag attachments. I have a Krone baler. Expensive to repair, but built like a tiger tank. 38,000lbs of german iron.
I might be buying a Krone tedder this year.

 

[RayIN]

Wet fields and Geter-done is never a good mix. If you have to then you have to, and a few prayers help. However if you can afford to wait and then still decide to do it and get stuck then your either new to this work or an idiot. I use to have the geter-done problem, but age and experience has weaned me off it (#!ssed off fathers, and bosses helped)

In that video, the guy operating the recovery track hoe does say it rained after the sprayer got buried/stuck.

 

[Hay Dude]

Wet fields and Geter-done is never a good mix. If you have to then you have to, and a few prayers help. However if you can afford to wait and then still decide to do it and get stuck then your either new to this work or an idiot. I use to have the geter-done problem, but age and experience has weaned me off it (#!ssed off fathers, and bosses helped)

Hmmmm. Well, I must have the “geter-done” or I won’t make as much money.
Farmers are up against time because of weather and crop damage if they don’t take chances.
If you don’t farm for a living, you really wouldn’t understand.

I figure for every 10 risks I take with getting stuck, 8 or 9 out of 10 times, I’ll make it.
The time I don’t make it? Well, lol….that’s what they make tow chains for.

 

[Sportsman762]

Farmers are up against time because of weather and crop damage if they don’t take chances.

I completely agree and it seems that the weather always goes to crud when the crops are ready for planting or harvest.

Wet fields and Geter-done is never a good mix. If you have to then you have to, and a few prayers help.

Wet fields are always a risk, and the "have to" moments is when I get into trouble these days. I view Geter-done as fool hardy and going out when you don't have too. There is a difference in my mind between, doing what you have to to finish the job, and the Geter-done taking excess risk that could be avoided. Perhaps my view on this is slanted as the folks who I know who say "geter-done" are the same ones that take excess risk.

@Hay Dude I have read enough of your posts to know that your not an excessive risk taker, but take calculated risks on what needs done. Experience keeps you out of the bad situations, unless there are limited options, in which case you mitigate the best you can.

 

[CalG]

I still lived in Fargo ND when Steiger Mfg. was putting out some high HP tractors.

I can't say what went wrong, but I did get to run a couple of them. Long days, 3 miles out, turn around and return. repeat for a couple of days, and the field is disced!

What did I know, I was just a kid and thought the money was great!

 

[Hay Dude]

I completely agree and it seems that the weather always goes to crud when the crops are ready for planting or harvest.

Wet fields are always a risk, and the "have to" moments is when I get into trouble these days. I view Geter-done as fool hardy and going out when you don't have too. There is a difference in my mind between, doing what you have to to finish the job, and the Geter-done taking excess risk that could be avoided. Perhaps my view on this is slanted as the folks who I know who say "geter-done" are the same ones that take excess risk.

@Hay Dude I have read enough of your posts to know that your not an excessive risk taker, but take calculated risks on what needs done. Experience keeps you out of the bad situations, unless there are limited options, in which case you mitigate the best you can.

I appreciate that. I feel like just being in the business is risky. Then you throw in taking additional risks, like “can I make it across this field” and it gets worse.

Sometimes I think the best rescue tool for a farmer is a backhoe or an excavator.


Backhoe better because it drives faster and once you put the outriggers down, the dipperstick can really pull stuck equipment out, but I’dlove to have a metal tracks excavator.

 

[Sportsman762]

Sometimes I think the best rescue tool for a farmer is a backhoe or an excavator.
Backhoe better because it drives faster and once you put the outriggers down, the dipperstick can really pull stuck equipment out,

Its amazing what a backhoe can pull. There have been times when I have had to get stuck, had a friend with the worst placed corncrib ever, and the only way was to pull in with the gravity feed boxes, then pull the tractor/wagon combo back out with the backhoe. I liked the Ford 655D as it had an extendahoe so you only had to reset the backhoe twice to drag everything out instead of the 3-4 resets it took with the 550 backhoe. Its darned hard to stick a backhoe to, I have buried past the frame in spots were I had to, then using the hoe and loader walked the backhoe back to firm ground. I wish I had a full sized industrial backhoe. But its impossible for me to justify.