Land Rollers For Sale in United Kingdom

It is used to flatten land and also to break up the large clods of soil that are often left behind after ploughing. Initially they were pulled by draft animals, but today agricultural rollers are pulled by tractors as trailed implements. Flattening the land can make later harvesting and weed control far easier. Rolling agricultural land can also help to reduce the amount of moisture loss from the soil. On pastures, meanwhile, rolling can ease mowing operations and achieve compaction of the soil surface. The degree to which a roller can level land, break up clods and flatten pastures depends upon the weight of the unit. Rollers can be weighted using different techniques. They can simply be constructed from thick steel or use a thinner steel cylinder with a concrete filling. Other models of rollers will use water to provide the weight. These units have the advantage of being capable of being emptied, which can make them easier to transport. These rollers should be drained in winter to prevent the water from freezing and expanding to burst the roller.  

Rollers can be simply a single one-piece smooth unit, but this has some disadvantages. For example, when making headland turns, the outer edge of the roller must turn more rapidly than the inside end, meaning that one or both of these ends will be forced to skid. This causes the soil to be heaped up at the headlands, which is unproductive. One solution is to make rollers in multiple sections, which greatly reduces the problem.

A more effective solution, however, is the Cambridge roller. This design features many disc-like segments, much like multiple wheels mounted on an axle. These can all rotate independently of each other, meaning that skidding is completely eliminated.

The roller surface can be smooth, but many models offer a textured surface designed to help break up clumps of soil or to introduce grooves into the rolled soil reduce rain scouring. The Cambridge roller, for example, features a rib around the circumference of its ‘wheels’ to achieve this result. Rollers are often ganged together to achieve greater coverage and raise productivity.

They are also often combined in use with other trailed or mounted implements, such as mowers, to achieve extended treatment in a single pass.

Rollers are often supplied as ‘swing’ models, where the different sections of the roller can be folded up to allow for easier transport and to take up less storage space when not in use. Some rollers also utilise hydraulics to ensure that the weight is evenly applied right across the units, so that the tips apply the same pressure as the middle of the centre section and contours are closely followed.

Roller manufacturers include Cousins, Fleming, Flexicoil, Knoche, Kongskilde, Kverneland, McAvoy, Needham, Proforge, Quivogne, Simba, Twose, Vaderstad and Watson.

Rollers are essentially simple implements that are exceedingly rugged. Water-weighted models should be checked for integrity, while those using hydraulics to distribute the weight should have that system tested. However, any used roller with structural integrity should last for many years with very little maintenance.