How to Choose the Best Agricultural Tires

In This Article:

How to Choose the Best Ag Tires for Your Farm Equipment
Understand Your Agriculture Equipment
Agriculture Tire Sizes Explained—Selecting the Right Size
The Right Tire Tread Is Crucial for Your Agriculture Tires
Pay Attention to the Load Capacity of Your Ag Tires
When You Need Agriculture Tires and Agricultural Inner Tubes, Count on Treadworld!

How to Choose the Best Ag Tires for Your Farm Equipment

Choosing the right agriculture tires for your farm equipment is a critical aspect of ensuring efficient and productive farming operations. Plus, selecting the best tires for the equipment and the chore requirements can save you significant money. When you are picking tractor tires, and other farm implement tires, there are several factors to consider. The tire experts at Treadworld are here to provide you with information and tips that will help make sense of those tire-performance-affecting factors, to make short work of choosing tires that match your equipment’s specific needs while leading you to maximized productivity and less down time.

Understand Your Agriculture Equipment

Before you begin the actual tire selection process, it’s essential to understand your farm equipment’s specific needs. The type of equipment, its size, weight, and horsepower will all play a role in determining the appropriate tire. For example, tractors, including small or mid-size and utility tractors, typically require heavy-duty tires with excellent traction, a higher load range weight capacity, and with resistance to wear and tear. Combines require farm tires that can handle heavy loads and provide excellent flotation over soft, muddy ground. For your harvesters, you want tires that have a higher load range, and provide good traction on all types of terrain. Planters and seeders are most productive with tires that can provide good flotation and minimize soil compaction. Sprayers work best with tires that can handle heavy loads and provide good traction on wet or uneven terrain. Think about the specific applications and usage for each piece of equipment, and consider factors such as soil type, weather conditions, and terrain and other conditions you usually face, along with the characteristics that will provide you with the best performance for all your farm implements —loaders, backhoes, bailers, forklifts, grain carts, manure spreaders, even down to the tires for dollies and hand trucks you use. Once you know what you want in your agricultural tires, making your best selection will be easier.

Agriculture Tire Sizes Explained—Selecting the Right Size

Selecting the right tire size is critical to ensuring that your farm equipment operates efficiently and safely. Consulting the owner’s manual or the manufacturer’s website is a good place to start, and may offer you a couple of acceptable size options. That’s the easy answer, and life is complicated enough, right? You can also look at the tire sidewall markings on your current tires to provide information on the tire size and other specifications.

You may be choosing from the following common tire sizes for your farm equipment. Here is what the numbers mean.

• 11L-15 – the 11 refers to the tire width, 11 inches, and the 15 refers to the rim diameter, 15 inches.
• 12.5L-15 implement tire – like above, the 12.5 indicates the tire’s width, 12.5 inches, and the 15 indicates it fits a 15-inch rim.
• 16×6.50-8 – here the 16 refers to the tire’s diameter in inches, 16 inches, the 6.50 refers to the tire’s width in inches, 6.50 inches, and the 8 refers to the diameter of the rim, 8 inches.
• 23×0.50-12 – similar to the above size, the 23 indicates the tire’s diameter, 23 inches, the 8.50 indicates the tire’s width, 8.5 inches, and the 12 indicates the diameter of the rim, 12 inches.
• 4.00/4.80-8 – The 4.00/4.80 indicates that the tire has two possible widths, 4 inches and 4.80 inches, and the 8 indicates the diameter of the rim, 8 inches.

The Right Tire Tread Is Crucial for Your Agriculture Tires

Choosing the best tread pattern—rib or bar lug—for the agriculture tires on your array of farm equipment is crucial to determining how well your machinery performs on various terrains, and in various weather conditions. Rib tread designs have a continuous, smooth surface running down the center of the tire—a design that optimizes use on hard surfaces such as concrete, asphalt, and hard-packed soil. The rib design provides excellent steering control and reduces rolling resistance, resulting in less soil compaction. You may prefer a rib tread for lawn mowers or lawn tractors, and turf maintenance equipment. Since this tread offers reduced rolling resistance, it’s a good choice for transport equipment like flatbed trailers and grain carts, as well as for harvester tires, planters, seeders, and similar.

Bar lug tread designs feature a series of raised bars or lugs that extend across the tire’s surface, providing increased traction in soft or loose soil, mud, and snow. The deep lugs also help to self-clean the tire, preventing mud and debris from building up and reducing traction. The bar lug design is ideal for applications such as plowing, tilling, and pulling heavy loads. Bar lug tire treads can provide better performance for off-road conditions, heavy loads, wet conditions, hilly terrain, soft soil and rough terrain.

Pay Attention to the Load Capacity of Your Ag Tires

The ply rating/load range of your agriculture tires is another critical factor to consider when choosing your ag tires—which are often required to carry heavy loads and provide solid traction in a variety of field conditions—because it provides an indication of the tire’s load capacity. If a tire is overloaded, it can cause excessive wear, reduce traction, and even lead to a blowout, which can be dangerous for you and others in the area. On the other hand, if a tire is underloaded, it may not provide the necessary traction and stability needed for the equipment to perform efficiently.

The first step to determining the maximum load capacity required for your tires is to identify the weight of your equipment, including any attachments, plus the weight of any load it will be carrying. It’s also a good idea to check the equipment manufacturer’s recommendations, in the owner’s manual or on-line. And, you’ll want to consider the terrain and conditions in which your equipment will be operating, which can impact the load range required for your tires. For example, if your equipment will be used in wet or muddy conditions, a higher load range may be required to provide the necessary traction and support.

When You Need Agriculture Tires and Agricultural Inner Tubes, Count on Treadworld!

When you’re looking for the best agricultural tires, we’ve got you covered here at Treadworld, in a wide range of RubberMaster styles and sizes—with load ranges varying from 4/B to 12, in sizes 23×10.50-12, 23×8.50-12, 4.00/4.80-8, 16×6.50-8, 3.50-6, 11L-15, 12.5L-15 and 9.5L-15. We also have a huge selection of agricultural inner tubes—extreme service tubes, implement tubes, and tractor tire tubes for both bias and radial tires. All our RubberMaster Agricultural Tires are manufactured to exacting specs then triple-checked and X-rayed for dependable quality that won’t let you down, and all our RubberMaster Agriculture Tubes undergo several strict quality checks to provide you with the long-lasting, high performance quality you want. Easy ordering and fast shipping, plus your satisfaction is always guaranteed with our no-hassle Ultimate Advantage Warranty. Don’t hesitate to contact our tire experts via live chat, or email with any questions you may have, and to get the farm tires and implement tires and tubes you want—or the perfect trailer tires, ATV tires, UTV tires, golf cart tires, lawn and garden tires and many others, plus tubes—from our extensive selection. Or use our Treadworld Product Selector Tool to help you find exactly what you want, on our home page.