Farmers have been trying to protect their tractor and harvester tires from in-field “road hazards” ever since pneumatic tires began replacing steel wheels in the 1930s. The struggle continues today with no-tillers and tire manufacturers allied in a pitched battle every season against increasingly tough standing crop residue that many describe as a field of rebar

“If you consider metal as 100%, you can easily rate modern field stubble as 90+%,” says Firestone Ag’s Dusty Hininger. “Each year we experience tougher standing stalks as plant science gives us higher-yielding traited corn and soybeans selections. Even wheat stubble is becoming a problem.”

While new tire technology featuring hybrid tire compounds that place harder rubber in the tread wedded to softer materials in the sidewall and the inclusion of tough aramids like Kevlar in rubber compounds, stubble damage still seems an elusive foe. No-tillers find erosion of rubber at the base of ag tire lugs and outright tire penetration in some cases where stalks have speared the tire carcass.

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