Double Mouldboard Plough trials Naver Forest
Forestry Commission copyright image of Forest Research photographs courtesy of Glenn Brearley, Roslin. Nil Ref No
A series of photographs by Mike Lofthouse, then working in Work Study, showing something of the trials of a D75 peat plough working in Naver Forest (actual location not identified but could be around the Truderscaig area).
The Forestry Commission was obviously still pursuing the objective of designing an all round double mouldboard plough that would plough well in all peat conditions. In all probability it was realised that a large proportion of the future land acquisitions and planting sites would be on deep peat.
The D75 plough is deeper than the 60 centimetre ploughs that were adopted in later years but the follow on photographs in the PDF demonstrate the problems in trying to obtain consistent ribbons of peat either side of the furrow. In this case the peat appears quite fibrous and as can be seen some of the peat ribbons are falling back into the furrow and in other areas falling well across the platform. This presented many difficulties to the planters who only had a garden spade to try and place a turf in the gaps and plant a tree on it.
In general the double furrow peat ploughs could cope well with the softer more uniform peat conditions but fibrous peats were very tough and tended to either spring off the mouldboard too far or just fall back into the furrow.
Unfortunately neither the tractor or driver are featured but almost certainly a Fiat 100C with Jocky Banks as the driver.
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Groups: Forest Research, Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Tractors Ploughs and Drainage Machines