Double furrow ploughing trials at Whitelee Forest
Forestry Commission copyright image of Forest Research photographs courtesy of Glenn Brearley, Roslin. A6160
A series of photographs by Donald Thomson in Jan 1976 of eight different double furrow plough head combinations to try and establish the ideal double plough head for the future. Ideally the head should consistently throw out a well formed peat ribbon vegetation side down. It was also desirable to try and achieve a tree planting spacing across the plough furrow of close to 2.00 - 2.20 m. This dictated that the peat ribbon had to land and stay close to the edge of the peat ribbon as the tree was planted on the platform side of the ribbon for increased crop stability. There was a school of thought that the sides of the plough furrow had to have an angle as far from 90 degrees as possible in order to encourage tree roots crossing the platform between the furrows to venture down the more gently sloping sides towards the furrow bottom. It was believed that if this angle was near 90 degrees the roots stopped at the edge rather than continue down thus reducing future crop stability. A very debatable subject!
This image shows a set of furrows produced by a D60/-/t Mark 6 version which had the widest bucket and was set deep. Again this looks as though the tree plant spacing would be very wide across the furrow but the peat ribbon formation is good.
Groups: Forest Research, Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Tractors Ploughs and Drainage Machines