Narrow vs. Row Crop

[Patsdeere]

Was a narrow tractor used for different crops than the row crop version, if so what crops were they used for? What were the benefits of a narrow front? I don't see much of an advantage.

Thanks.

 

[CLW]

Narrow is a row crop. Take a 70 for instance. It could have a narrow or wide front end. Most tractors in the 40s, 50s and early 60s used front mounted equipment which worked well on that size tractor up to 6 rows. As equipment and tractors got larger equipment moved to the rear to get weight off the front of the tractor and more on the rear as well as was much easier to hook up. The front row equipment was nice in my opinion. I plowed many fields with 4-row cultivators on A, B, and 60s.
You may be thinking of a standard vs row crops. Standards were a stocky, lower tractor with wider rear wheels of the same model tractor. Used for pulling heavy equipment from the drawbar such as large disks.

 

[Lon in NE]

A narrow front is a specialized type of row-crop. Usually when you refer to a tractor as a row-crop, it has the two front wheels close together. A narrow has only a single wider front wheel. The narrow was used on crops that were planted in closer rows, usually vegetables.

Lon

 

[Patsdeere]

Thanks for the info.

I am trying to put together a little info for a museum I am working with and am having a tough time coming up with the reason there was the row crop (2 tires in front) and the narrow with the single wheel. They seem to be essentially the same thing in terms of going down the ditches. However, there must have been some darn good reasons otherwise they wouldn't have gone to the effort to make them.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Dual front wheels were used for general farming such as corn and soybeans. Single fronts were mostly used to cultivate crops planted in very narrow rows (20 inches or less) usually vegetable crops.

Jerry

 

[Brendon-KS]

I grew up in an area where furrow irrigation was used (and still is). The single front wheel was much better suited in this application and was the only kind of tricylce tractor used there. Dual fronts would have fought each other but the single wheel tracked down the furrow easily.

 

[n2deep]

Patsdeere

Single wheel or trikes as we know them are used exclusively for irrigated row crops like cotton. The real benifit is that they track extremely well in the rows and this reduces the risk of damaging crops from wheels moving in/out of the rows. In fact, it was uncommon to see a two wheel or wide front tractor in southern arizona-cotton country

 

[ET]

The row crop concept was origionaly develped by IH with its development of the farmall regular. The power cultvator started with the design where the tractor had two drive wheels in front and the two narrow wheels in back with the cultivators mounted in front of the operator, who sat in the rear. At some point the design concept was turned around and became the farmall regular tractor. The rest of the industry eventualy copyed this tractor idea.

 

[Sarah from Tulsa]

Before power steering the narrow front where easier to steer than a wide front.

 

[Patsdeere]

Thanks for the info. That is exactly the reasoning I was looking for.

And thanks to everybody else that chimmed in.

 

[PBrowning]

While these contributors provided geat information, I would surely hope that if you are preparing material that will inform (or teach) others, that you are also doing some homework of your own. That means hitting the local library and perhaps even buying (and reading) some books that support your museum operation. Such books should also be in your museum.

Sitting at your keyboard and fully expecting all of the answers to pour out into your lap off of this forum - tied in a red ribbon is pure folly, and will eventually do a dis-service to those receiving unresearched and generally unverified data. (PatB)

 

[jd6620]

Wow!

 

[thurlow]

Are you saying we are full of "it"? Guilty as charged!! Without referring to anything specifically in this thread, there's tons of wrong information posted on these forums and anyone asking questions needs to be very aware of the 'reputation' of the one answering.

 

[CLW]

Sorry to mislead you. Growing up in Texas any tractor that did not have a wide front was called a narrow front even tho that was technicality incorrect. We didn't have tractors with single front wheels, only double. The N series Ford was the only wide front I recall up until 1961. Cotton and Corn were the main crops along with wheat. My parts book for the 620-630 shows one front wheel as SINGLE and two front wheels close together as DOUBLE. The other are correct in what they were used for. Again, sorry.

 

[Bill(Wis)]

The narrow fronts with either dual wheels or the lesser used single wheel (making them slightly more sought after by collectors-maybe) were very popular in the midwest for cultivating "row crops", corn in particular because it needed a great deal of cultivating before it canopied over at a height of 24 to 30+ inches. Rows in those days were 38-42" wide to accomodate the width of a horse. Higher crops such as corn would get mopped down by a tractor having a wide front axle tread. With the narrow front, there was no axle up front so the first thing the corn would hit would be parts of the cultivator and the rear axle of the tractor. Most of these tractors had relatively high rear axles due to either wheel height or some sort of drop axle (Allis Chalmers, for example). The wider rows eventually gave out to narrower rows which canopied earlier and herbcide application eventually eliminated the need for cultivating. With the return of "organic farming" however, you now see farmers cultivating crops such as corn again although now, thanks be to rear mounted implements, the cultivator is on the rear and the tractor usually has dual wheels front and rear with tread widths that straddle the rows. A true "Row Crop" tractor.

 

[JMS/.MN]

Really tough to use a mounted corn picker on a wide front tractor! LOL

 

[RobMD]

Unless it is a side mounted picker.

 

[Kemper]

Someone must be having a bad day?...

Why the smart A$$ remarks? He recieved alot of good info that he can edit and i'm sure the museum will find it very usefull...

I hope you have a better day tomorrow?

 

[thurlow]

I don't need to defend Mr. Browning; he's quite capable of doing that himself. I think the point is...........there's lots of answers given on these forums that're just plain wrong. If one already knows the answers, they can sift through them, but if they don't know (why else would they ask), how are they to tell when they're being led astray. There are folks 'on here' whom I trust implicitly; others I wouldn't trust to tell me whether or not it was raining outside. How does a newcomer tell who's who.........

 

[Patsdeere]

I am doing some of my own research and talking to old timers. I just wanted to get others' ideas since research doesn't always get you the little details that a factory worker would know. Granted this question doesn't fall into that category, but I think you get the idea.