Some of the activities typically included in the broad agenda of events planned for the patron saint fairs in the villages of La Mancha (in our area) are related to agricultural competitions. These often feature a ploughing competition and a trailer manoeuvring contest, where farmers have to demonstrate their tractor handling skills. For spectators, these events are quite interesting to as the tasks are highly challenging and demand a significant level of expertise from participants.
It is also true that all these agricultural competitions are becoming less and less popular over the time. Older farmers are growing weary of participating, while younger farmers often lack the skills needed. For example, the ploughing competition particularly challenging, as we are now accustomed to using automated guidance systems. Similarly, the trailer manoeuvring competition is becoming increasingly difficult since, in our day-to-day work, we rarely need to perform complex manoeuvres. Sheds and yards are becoming more and more spacious and tractors less reliant on precision handling, these skills are no longer as relevant. Unfortunately, the decline in popularity is also linked to the decreasing number of farmers in small villages. For example, in our village it has been years since the trailer manoeuvring competition was held. Besides, this year, only four farmers participated in the ploughing competition... when years ago we remember seeing more than 20 tractors.
As you can see in our video and photos, the challenge is quite complex and requires a great deal of attention and experience to achieve a perfectly straight furrow. The winner is the one who makes the straightest furrow and ends up at the mark, an accomplishment that is often difficult to achieve. Factors like the time taken, speed or depth of ploughing are not evaluated... these aspects are left entirely to the tractor driver discretion.
The use of the plough is beneficial although nowadays many farms have very consolidated direct sowing and in addition many times it is the only way to be able to get to the right place at the right time. However, in some cases the ploughing of stubble is very necessary, especially in irrigated fields that have been sown with maize or sunflower. This is due to the fact that the soil becomes very hard with irrigation and the tracks of tractors, combines, pivots, etc. are very marked. We have been talking to our friend Fernando Martín (from Medina de Rioseco - Valladolid), who was ploughing the stubble of maize with his Pöttinger Servo 35 S plough and his John Deere 6190 R.
The plough is five-furrow with a distance between furrows of 1.10 m. It is a very long distance that certainly helps to have good relief, but the plough is much heavier when it is suspended. In fact, he had trouble lifting it until they adjusted the chassis of the third point of the plough to a higher position. The mouldboards are slatted mouldboards, so it relieves weight and also works very well on wet fields as it loosens the soil better and generates less traction. As for the non-stop system, it is a hydropneumatic system that can be configured from the tractor to vary the pressure and therefore the triggering aggressiveness (it normally works at around 100 bar). If you have fields without stones, a plough with fuse safety system is recommended, but if you have stones or work on very hard soil, the hydro-pneumatic system is highly recommended as it works much better than the leaf spring and is much more comfortable to adapt to soil conditions. One of the main advantages of fuse ploughs is that the first furrow is closer to the tractor, so it works much better and also that type of plough is lighter. One of the main advantages of ploughs with fuse safety system is that the first furrow is closer to the tractor, so it works much better and also that type of plough is lighter.
The plough has a memory system that allows, every time you change the headland the closing, turning and opening movements in a robotic way. The opening is done at the distance you have programmed. Normally, you would plough at a distance of 40 cm, which would mean a working width of 2 metres. You can fix it at a maximum of 2.5 meters working width but you need more power and if it is much closed you can have problems with disposal if you have a lot of waste, obviously. As it is five-furrow plough, the tractor is in a furrow, but with the mouldboards uses they make a quite big furrow and the tires don't suffer in spite of being wide tires. We think, the ideal today are the off-furrow ploughs to take advantage of, for example, the self-guiding systems but they are more recommended for ploughs of at least six-furrow.
As for the skimmers, they are not necessary because the plough flip a lot. In addition, when working with skimmers, the surface part of the soil is buried first and therefore remains largely buried. That's all very well when you want to remove of waste, grain that has been thrown away by the combine or weeds, but when you throw away manure, for example, it gets very clogged up and sometimes it's not your goal. For this last reason, Fernando has chosen to remove the skimmers.
Another feature to highlight is the depth control wheel. In this case it is a double wheel that is much better than the pendulum wheels. The double wheel doesn't suffer in the turning movements like the single pendulum wheel and it can also be put on the penultimate body and therefore doesn't hinder you to plough near a border or any obstacle you have in the field. If the wheel goes next to the last body, you have to leave distance to the obstacle and the whole plot is not used.
Finally, it is worth mentioning the following characteristics of the disc coulters. As you can see in the photos, it is equipped with two scalloped disc coulters that are fixed in front of the last furrow. This helps the last furrow has a correct working depth and therefore that the whole plough works equally. A clean disc coulter cut guarantees precise turning of the ridge and a clean furrow.
Today, tree crops are in fashion in Spain. Maybe, cereals and pulse vegetables doesn't have an important profitability and almond trees, olive trees, vineyard,... have great benefits. We are going to speak about how you can plant a new vineyard or how we changed our old olive trees for new olives trees. In our area, a lot of farmers are planting almond trees... a few days ago, the owner of a nursery which is near our village said that he has already sold his whole almond trees production of the next three years.
If you would like to plant trees, the best practice for that is to carry out a depth working with the aim of breaking the compacted soil. It is going to help trees' roots to grow quickly, it favours the formation of water reserves in depth and significantly reduces the stagnation of the water in the surface. We perform this work every 4 or 5 years in our fields where we sow cereal, sunflowers or pulse vegetables... we think it is a good practice.
As you can see in our picures, you can use different tools for this work. Some years ago, the most common implement was a giant plough. Our friend Jesús Ángel (from Motilla del Palancar - Cuenca) sent us some pictures of his Massey Ferguson working with a big plough. Nowadays, the most common tool for this work is the subsoiler. The Spanish Gascón International brand has a large range of these implements. Astrea subsoiler highlights because it has a hydropneumatic non stop system that allows us to regulate trigger using oil pressure. It is ideal, e. g., for outsourcing companies who are working in different fields (hard, clayey or stony fields) because they can increase the trigger sensitivity (lowering pressure oil circuit) to prevent possible breaks in the implement or even on the tractor.
