John Deere explains how tire pressure, track depth, and ground contact affect soil compaction and fuel efficiency. Proper settings reduce damage to soil while improving machine performance.
For technicians, the ground contact surface is an important feature for assessing the quality of a machine. We have sprinkled flour on the ground to make the size of the ground contact surface obvious. This allows us to see a comparison of the different sizes of ground contact surfaces. For tracks and tyres, large contact surfaces and low loads are beneficial. As a rule of thumb, when ordering a tire, the tire pressure should be below 1 bar, while during the harvest it should stand at about 2 bar. Tracks exert a ground pressure of around 0.4 bar. This makes it much better provided it's properly ballasted and properly implemented. During cultivation and inspections, tracks are left in the field depending on the soil moisture, the weight of the load and the size of the ground contact surface. These tracks have different depths in front of the track. I drive the tyre or the tracks against a mound of earth. The deeper the tracks, the more diesel is required and soil compaction also forms. These compactions cost money to create during harvest and during later loosening. Other than avoiding tracks, you should also work with as little slippage as possible. You should use a wheeled tractor in such a way that it works with slippage of 10% or below. Tracks should move with slippage of around 5%. That means I'll have a low track depth and a good conversion from diesel energy to traction power. The quadruple track, with its large ground contact surface, travels in a similar way to a wheeled tractor, but produces flatter tracks and can transmit considerably more tractive force.
