99% of the world’s food comes from the soil.
Rainfall is essential for the growth of crops in this soil.
Yet this rainfall, if not retained in order that it can soak into the soil, can be so destructive, as we have seen in recent years.
Non-retention of rainfall on land is known as surface water run-off.

​Surface water run-off:

• Washes away valuable top soil
• Carries this topsoil into streams and rivers, ending up as sediment – sediment is the primary contributor to the increase in occurrences of flooding from our waterways.
• Takes with it fertilizers and other potential pollutants onto other land and ultimately into the water course.

​

DEFRA funded Research & Development shows that tramline wheelings on farms can account for 80% of surface water run-off.
72% (UK 71%) of the land in England is under agricultural management.

• A solution is required that can indent the soil compacted by the tractor tyres and hence provide a reservoir to retain the water to prevent run-off.
• A solution is required that can self-clean in order to facilitate continuous operation, even in demanding soil conditions.
• A solution is required which furthermore directs the water retained into the soil which is going to support the crop, in order that the water can both soak away and also be of benefit to the crop in particular.

Aquagronomy have developed such a solution in their Wheel Track Roller.
The self-cleaning Wheel Track Roller creates indents which reduce water run-off in crop tramlines by holding the water in mini reservoirs.
By the integration of angled tines, the water retained is directed into drainage channels under the roots of the adjoining crop for potential uptake.
Furthermore, the Roller creates fissures in the soil surface to aid water absorption whilst leaving a compacted convex centre of the tramline to maintain trafficability.

​Machine adaptable for operation in combinable crops (cereals) AND ridge / bed grown crops (potatoes / vegetables).
A uniquely shaped self-cleaning, high-slip, low soil adherence plastic Roller forms angled elongated reservoirs.
The oblique angled Roller self-cleans by the slip and scour movement.
A 100% longer indent than tooth length creates fissures in the soil surface to further aid absorption.
The concave shaped centre section of the Roller gives a necessary, compacted convex centre of the tramline pathway that ensures water flows into reservoirs to maintain a dry pathway that facilitates traffic.
Angled tines divert the water through the soil and into the crop.

Andrew Williams, Farm Director, Home Farms Nacton
​​We have been working with the wheel track roller for more than 10 years and have found it to be a simple and cost effective way of managing diffuse pollution and runoff from fields of root crops, in particular Potatoes.
Whether the runoff is caused by a heavy rainfall event or irrigation, the wheel track roller will in the large majority of cases eliminate runoff or at least dramatically reduce it.
We treat all our sloping fields as a matter of course and as many of our “flat” fields as time allows and we do this as close to the completion of planting as possible.
As an industry we bemoan the cost of fertiliser, pesticides, seed and irrigation water, yet too often we watch them running out of the field in runoff carrying irreplaceable top soil with it.

In DEFRA backed trials on combinable crops, with integration of the Wheel Track Roller, run-off amounted to just 1.9% of the rainfall.
​Following a whole season on ridge / bed grown crops, just 1.0% of rainfall ran off where the Wheel Track Roller was integrated.

​
Accolades

British Farming Awards – finalist
Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association – Innovation Trophy
Soil Association – Innovation Award – runner up



​