Irish eyes are smiling on Bridgestone and Firestone’s agricultural products, with a crop of farm contractors in the south of the country giving both brands an emphatic thumbs-up.
In one of the wettest winters on record, many farmers have not just been frustrated by the weather, but completely foiled from getting out onto the fields in the first place, resulting in lost time and ultimately income.
But thanks to Bridgestone’s VT-TRACTOR tyre, slurry has been spread and many fields have been freshly seeded – in a success story to beat Mother Nature.
The premium product is capable of operating at a lower inflation pressure and with a larger tyre footprint, thus reducing ground contact pressure and associated soil compaction. The most important feature of the VT-Tractor tyre is arguably its very low and very evenly distributed contact pressure.
Joe Morrissey, who owns a farm in Rostellan, County Cork, was a huge advocate of the product.
He said: “Conditions here have been absolutely desperate. It was pure sludge and you couldn’t walk on the land without cutting it up. I thought it was impossible to get a tractor out there, but the VT-TRACTOR definitely made it possible.
“You’d have thought that there was no way, but we were out there spreading slurry and we soon had a freshly seeded field. On any other tyre I know, the ground would cut and rut for the rest of the year and the volume of grass wouldn’t grow back. You’d lose two or three acres in no time. If you replicate this over the entire area then you have a big, big advantage.”
While Bridgestone has set its sights on the new and growing high-end agricultural tyre segment, Firestone is also continuing to meet the needs of a large proportion of the tractor market with its high-quality agricultural tyres.
The recently upgraded Maxi Traction 65 also has wider lugs and wider tyre width, providing a larger ground contact area which extends its tyre life further. This economy is carried onto the road where the tyre’s longer lugs, with larger lug overlap, increase wear resistance on hard surfaces.
Every farm contractor interviewed not only boasts a great relationship with Bridgestone, but also their dealer partner Robinson Tyres in Midleton, who are always on hand to answer any tyre related calls and advise on the best possible products.
For more information about Bridgestone and Firestone’s agricultural offering, visit www.bridgestone.co.uk
