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Why is my plough riding high on one side?
If your plough's ripping depth is uneven, it may be due to uneven blade wear.
The blades on your Agrowplow deep ripper are designed to dig into the soil to allow you to reach and shatter hardpan at the correct depth. If the blades are wearing unevenly on one side, it can cause that side of the plough to ride high in the soil or struggle to penetrate the soil at all.
This can be particularly noticeable on wider and trailing plough models. One side may be ripping to the correct depth of 450mm with the other side barely penetrating and the plough pivoting around the mid-line near the hitch.
What happens when the blades are uneven?
When plough blades become worn they lose the ability to dig into the soil. They will skid across the soil surface, unable to gain enough attachment to even the surface layer.
Why would only one side of the plough have uneven blades?
Sometimes soils are unevenly compacted. This can result from traffic travelling over some areas of a paddock but not others - such as in controlled traffic operations. It can also result from the natural flow of water or livestock favouring a particular path through the paddock.
Deep ripping in unevenly compacted country causes an uneven pattern of wear on the plough and its blades. While you won't see the effects immediately, they will slowly amplify over time, wearing only some blades which, in turn, makes those same blades more susceptible to wear in the future.
How can I fix it?
The simplest fix is replacing the worn blades. We recommend plough owners keep at least a full set of blades as spares to minimise interruptions to your ripping schedule.
Considering the likely causes of compaction in your paddocks and adjusting your ripping program accordingly can also help mitigate uneven wear. For example, if you already know where the tramlines are, try ripping at a slight angle to the tramline to achieve a more consistent wear pattern and more effective shattering effects on the soil.
You can also try swapping the worn blades on one side with the blades on the other side as a quick fix. While not fixing the problem it will help confirm whether the issue is with the worn blades instead of somewhere else.