Upgrading the Hefty Brother's tractor & planter with CTIS + VF tires! (2023)

Introduction

The Hefty Brothers got the ultimate planting equipment upgrade! A PTG central tire inflation system + Michelin VF YIELDBIB tires. Stay tuned because they're going to test how many bushels farmers can gain by running lower tire pressures.

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Hefty Brothers Planting Setup

Tractor: John Deere 8R 370
Planter: John Deere DB60

Central Tire Inflation System:
PTG RDS Tractor System with External Display + AIRBOX Planter System

Tires:
Front Tractor Tires: Michelin YIELDBIB VF 420/85R34
Rear Tractor Tires: Michelin YIELDBIB VF 480/80R50
Center Planter Tires: Alliance 381 Agriflex+ VF 445/50R22.5
Planter Wing Tires: Alliance 381 Agriflex+ VF 340/60R16.5

Content

Uh, I'm, rob hillis I'm with nts tire out of redwood falls we're currently down here at the hefty brothers farm in baltic south dakota, working on a project with michelin we're, installing an inflation system and changing out tires on their 8r 370 tractor going from radial tires to vf tires.

This is sean higgins he's with michelin he's, kind of the head of this project here with the hefty brothers, sean do you want to just kind of talk a little bit about what hefty is going to be doing here with the tire inflation system in the vf tires, absolutely.

So what hefty will be doing is running both at the standard pressures and at low pressures.

And comparing to see what are the differences in yield, we already know from our historical research that we've done over in europe that that yield portion is the biggest impact financially to a farm operation.

When you look at a front-fold planner like this db, setup with this 8r, the ctis makes a lot of sense here because we've got a big shift in weight and speed.

So when we're folded up and we're running at top speed down the road, you've got a lot of weight on that back axle the tractor, a lot of weight on those four mains of the planter.

We get to the field.

We open up.

We can see as much as 10 000, plus pounds shift off the back axle the tractor when that happens, uh, we need a fraction of the air in those tires typically you're stuck with having to set a pressure for the worst case scenario and that's going to be running on the road.

So now we're going to have the option to have the very best performance when we run on the road and even better performance and full utilization of that michelin ultraflex technology when they're running in the field so we're excited to see how that turns out absolutely.

And so when we talk about the benefits of this, just from a yield aspect, we're talking a great amount of dollars how about benefits on fuel.

I mean, have we seen large benefits as far as fuel consumption when we're in the fields taking less power? Yeah, absolutely.

So, uh.

What we typically see is a 10 savings in fuel, we'll see a savings both in the field and on the road.

So we've got a smaller contact patch, less rolling resistance and really that tire wearing optimally when we're on the road.

Conversely, when we get to the field, we want to lay out a long footprint.

We want the softest impact to the soil that we can get.

And we want less slip.

You know, we've got a lot of rising costs in natural resources.

Tires are no exception.

They've seen a lot of price increase during the pandemic.

And during all the situations globally that are happening, we normally see a 20 increase entire life.

So there's, a lot of areas where a farmer looks for a return on this investment, he's making the very best use of his technology and getting the most life out of that investment on his farm perfect.

So this is ken broadback with precision, inflation based out of des moines iowa.

Ken you want to just kind of explain what we're doing here on this tractor.

Yeah, this tractor has the rds system from ptg from germany.

What it allows us to do is put a rotary unit on the shaft, affix it to the tractor housing and the blue portion of what clamps to the axle.

And then that spins this is static.

And then your air lines come from here.

We have a unique system where we have two airlines that go to the wheel.

And this third is a yellow line, which actually tells the computer what the pressure is here.

So it knows when to turn itself on and off.

Ken you guys have been dealing with ptg, which is a german-based company for quite a few years.

Now, can you explain a little bit about ptg and the quality of work that they do? Certainly it was a family-owned company.

They started 30 years ago.

Martin tigges is the founder of the company.

He invented this black and blue rds and patented it 30 years ago, they're still using it today, everything's.

External.

If there's any issues you can actually work on it, they have isobus capability where we connect to the tractors, isobus and run planter and two axles on the tractor, all each into a separate pressures, or you can run this with their own control box in the cab.

Okay.

And one thing that really impressed me when I first heard about ptg was, uh, how many hours you get without having to worry about maintenance? Can you kind of explain a little bit about their 10 000 hour? Just what you said, they're, rob 10 000 hours, these are all pre-lubricated.

There are no zerks there's, no maintenance to these fittings.

The beauty of what ptg offers compared to a couple of the competitors is it's a two-line system.

We put a wheel check valve in every wheel.

So that the only time these airlines are charged is when you're either changing pressure up or down, or if you're checking pressure, otherwise, there's, no pressure in any of these lines.

So therefore there's, no friction on the on the seal itself.

And that allows to have very little friction and very long life.

If it's a single line system, there's always pressure against those seals, which creates heat.

And then also if there's any kind of an air leak anywhere in the system, you will lose your air or use your tire pressure with us.

It's sealed, you can't lose the air pressure.

So let's say something happens out in the field, the rock hits an airline or something along those lines there's, no downtime you're, not gonna have a flat tire you're gonna be able to continue to plant.

You just need to replace that airline at some point.

Correct? Save you lost your hydraulic compressor, uh.

We leave the original air fittings in the wheel.

So you can take air in and out check pressures.

Just the way you do today.

If the system is not working, you can actually still increase the pressure decrease the pressure by hand.

If it would be that kind of a emergency situation, we don't run into it, but it's possible as far as you know as far as competitors go with air.

Inflation systems, ptg is the only company right now that has that two line system as an aftermarket.

This is the only one out there.

Welcome on behalf of nts, uh, I'll, be the first one to say, thank you for everything that you do for us as far as help and support hear what thank you.

So if anybody has any questions on tire inflation systems or some of the data and research nts actually teamed up with agribio research out of gibbon minnesota, and we have his information posted on our website.

We invite you to check that out at ntstiresupply.com.

We are excited to be part of this hefty brothers project.

We are looking forward to seeing the data in the research, which is accumulated through hefty brothers, we're also excited to be part of this with michelin and with precision egg.

So thanks for watching bye.