Well, it appears as though today is the day we finally put 2024 planting in the books!

We planted the next-to-last field Tuesday, and have been waiting on the other to dry. Both fields were in the toss-up category, but will end up in soybeans. Dad worked the field Thursday evening and we will plant it today. One week ago, the forecast was for 2.5 inches of rain in the next five days, the highest accumulation we received was about an inch.

The forecast has now turned dry for 10 days. We don’t want to mess this up and plant into mud which will turn to brick.

Meanwhile, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the sprayer. Monday, I applied burndown and residual chemistry to that last field. It was time for the floaters to come off and re-install the row crop tires. If you remember, after the spraying season was over last year, I purchased a new set of ‘skinnys’.

The skinny on tire pressure

We put them on, and as usual we checked the tire pressure. Something felt off. Each of the tires was at 58 psi. I seemed to remember running the previous set around 35 psi, but this was a different brand. The sidewall only stated a max inflation pressure for seating the bead. I called the salesman and there was no answer. I texted him.

While waiting for a response, I did what everyone does, I turned to Google. I found this article. It was a good read and re-enforced what I was thinking.

I also found the manufacturer’s tire guide. But again, it only listed one pressure and its rating was for about 15,000 more pounds of operating weight than what ours is. I called the manufacturer. They were helpful and they said they would text me the inflation chart for that tire. It never came.

About that time, the salesman text back to tell me it’s all good just run them. I shot over the link, my machine specs, and the only inflation info I could find about that tire. I was hoping for some guidance, but instead the thread felt a bit contentious.

I really didn’t have time to waste as spraying needed to get done. I decided to let some air out and headed to the fields to spray armyworm that had been found in the wheat.

Later that evening, I went back to the search box. I finally found the inflation table. Since I do go down the road loaded, I ran across the table with my loaded weight and found the correct pressure to be about 35 psi. If only I had loads tended to me, I could drop my pressure another 10-12 psi!

Bottom line is, a lot of us don’t do a good job on tire inflation, which isn’t good for the soil. I’m not thinking about a tire pressure inflation system, but we should get the tires set for correctly for the most common machine usage configuration (assuming it is within specifications for the heaviest application).