Wheel Trencher

I made a short trip to Shipman today and true to my blog name I saw some interesting ag related stuff.  First, it looked like grain was moving.  I saw several trucks being loaded on my way.  On the way home, I saw the wheel trencher below along with the track hoe and the bulldozer looking like someone is ready to lay tile.  Tile trenches are dug 2 ways in the modern world, although the original way was to dig them by hand.  Nowadays, either  wheel trencher or a tile plow is used.  The wheel trencher is used to lay large tile often called mains.  The tile stored here looked to be 12 inch.  smaller tile are connected to the 12 inch.  A wheel trencher is needed in this case.  Smaller tile laid on nice grades can be laid faster and easier with a tile plow.  If grades are very flat, then a trencher can be more accurate.  Both systems use either laser guidance or Satelite guidance to keep the tile on grade.