GLENLEA, Man. — Throwing heavy gumbo 100 to 200 feet from a new drainage ditch is a feat flatland farmers fantasize about.
Fantasy became reality at an October field day on the University of Manitoba’s Glenlea Research Farm when Dynamic Ditchers of Oak Bank, Man., demonstrated how its Wolverine rotary ditcher skims soil from depths of one to 10 inches and sends it airborne.
The Wolverine leaves none of the barrel hoop ditch profiles typically associated with rotary ditchers.
Prior to the Wolverine, rotary ditchers were designed to use the same spinning flywheel to capture the dirt and send it flying. The spinning rotor left a barrel hoop profile that needed to be smoothed out later.
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Glenn Vaags of Wolverine, who conducted the demonstration, also said it is asking too much of one component to both dig and fling the dirt. It’s inefficient and wastes a tremendous amount of horsepower and diesel, he added.
“The Wolverine uses a flat blade that’s five feet wide. It makes a flat cut just like a scraper,” says Vaags, a partner in the family owned business.
“We have three knives that penetrate three inches lower than the blade. They break up the soil and help keep the blade in the ground.”
Vaags said the three prongs scratch distinct parallel lines with each pass, which help the soil in the ditch dry out quicker. The tiny trenches collapse in the winter so the producer can seed right through them.
“There’s no need to come back to the field with another implement to address those little trenches or to smooth out the sides of the berm,” he said.
“The fan flings the soil. That’s its only job. It sends the dirt 100 to 200 feet.”
The blade pushes soil up into the transversely mounted feeder reel. Aggressive fingers and paddles break up the clumps and toss the dirt up into the spinning fan.
The feeder reel runs on a three-inch diameter shaft and is protected by a shear pin, which is a 3/8 inch, grade-five bolt. Vaags said it was a problem changing shear pins on rotary ditchers his family built before 2005, requiring big pry bars, hammers and a lot of time.
“It put guys in a real bad mood real quick,” said Vaags.
“We knew we had to address the shear pin problem if we expected this new machine to succeed. With the new system, the shear pin for the feeder can be changed in five minutes. We paid particular attention to this feature to make sure we got it right the first time.”
A No. 100 chain running in an oil bath within a sealed compartment on the right side of the machine drives the transverse feeder reel shaft. The shear pin is on the lower sprocket.
Two latches open the door. A lever located just a few inches from the door controls a hydraulic cylinder on the left side of the ditcher. The cylinder pulls a steel ratchet wheel that reverses the transverse shaft in tiny increments.
The operator taps the lever until the shear pin holes line up, pops in a new pin, closes the door and gets back to work.
The Wolverine has two gearboxes, each with a 2:1 gear reduction, that change power direction 90 degrees. The first runs the feeder reel and the second runs the five-foot diameter rotary fan. Both gearboxes are made in Manitoba.
The fan is protected by two shear pins located on the tractor side of the first gearbox. If a large rock sneaks past the feeder reel and gets into the impeller, the two pins will snap before the fan is damaged. These pins are out in the open and are easily changed.
The fan runs at 270 r.p.m. Gates over the exit ports allow the operator to throw soil left or right.
The ditcher rides on two tires, each controlled by its own independent hydraulic cylinder. Working together, the cylinders are used to raise or lower the machine, thus setting the depth of the cut.
When the cylinders are controlled separately, they raise or lower either the left or right side of the machine, thus setting the blade angle. The cylinders can be controlled manually by the operator or automatically by the RTK drainage software.
“As for power, you can get away with 190 to 200 (h. p.) as a bare minimum, but that’s only if you have a tractor that you can slow down to one m.p.h.
“We think 325 to 350 (h. p.) is optimal. You can put 600 h.p. to it and you won’t break the ditcher, but you’ll spend a lot of time replacing shear pins if you plan to sink her down and go two m.p.h. On lighter soils or on shallow cleanout passes, you can run up to five m.p.h.”
Vaags said farmers always ask about speed during field demonstrations.
Although it looks like its slow going, once he gets in the field with a farmer in the cab he says they are amazed at how quickly they cover a field.
“When dirt is flying through the air like that, it’s hard to visualize that we’re sometimes moving nearly 650 cubic yards per hour.”
While the total yardage may seem impressive, Vaags said it’s only part of the equation and can be misleading.
Spreading the soil over such a wide area eliminates the need to return to the field with finishing implements, thus saving time and money.
He also challenges the assumption that moving a high volume of soil is necessary for good drainage.
“That’s the way drainage engineers and farmers and operators used to think. The old mindset was, ‘how many yards can we load into that scraper.’ Today, the people designing drainage equipment and drainage software have a mindset that says, ‘what’s the very least amount of soil we need to move to get good drainage.’ The old style survey systems and the laser systems shoot a perfectly straight line running down your ditch. You have to move a lot of soil if you want a straight grade from the highest pothole to the edge of the field.”
He said this old mindset leads to scrapers that carry 48 cubic yards and tractors that need 600 h.p. to get the job done.
“The latest RTK systems, like Ditch Pro or the John Deere I-Grade, make a more gradual incline that follows the slope of your field and the contour of the Earth. What that comes down to is you don’t move as much soil.”
The Wolverine rotary ditcher is built in Manitoba and carries a list price of $52,000.
Vaags said that in the decade lead-in g up to the total re-design in 2005, his father built 20 prototypes using the more conventional design with the rotor doing the digging and throwing.
“Those ditchers did the job in most soils, but they took so much power and they just couldn’t handle Red River Valley gumbo. That’s when he decided to start over from scratch with this totally new ditcher.”
For more information, contact Vaags at 701-444-5513 or visit www.dynamicditchers.com.
