BARGERSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - On less-traveled roads around Bargersville, Jonathon Bright normally can drive his tractor from field to field without encountering much traffic.
That changes when he turns onto Whiteland Road.
He carefully navigates his machinery to avoid mailboxes, power lines and other obstacles, but he is most concerned with drivers coming toward him.
“It’s a nightmare. We travel across it from our base from Bargersville to our other fields; and on a road like that, the concern is the speed of traffic,” he said. “People will still drive 55 miles per hour, right at you, as if you’re not even there.”
Formerly open areas such as White River Township have become more developed in recent years, and farmers have a tougher time reaching their fields between busy roads, subdivisions and shopping plazas. With farmers moving seeders, sprayers and tractors to fields across Johnson County this time of year, roadways get crowded.
Farmers take every available precaution to stay out of busy areas, but sometimes it can’t be avoided.
“For the most part, a vast majority of drivers are courteous, respectful and helpful. They will pull off far on the side of the road and stop or slow down,” said Rob Richards, a Center Grove area farmer and general manager of Indy Family Farms. “Then there are others who view us as an obstruction, and we’re slowing them down, and those instances are little more challenging.”
Richards is a fourth-generation farmer, currently farming about 12,000 acres of their own and rented land with his sons, Eric and Aaron.
When his father purchased land in White River Township decades ago, the area looked much different. Most of the roads were gravel. Nearly the entire township was farmland, and traffic was light.
That has changed. White River Township’s population has grown from about 6,300 in 1960 to 42,000 in 2010.
“It’s difficult and challenging, due to the traffic load and the width of the country roads,” Richards said. “When you have tractors with dual wheels on each side, that will definitely overlap a little on the sides.”
In the spring, the most common farm machinery on the roads are tractors pulling equipment such as a disc, cultivator or planter.
Farmers might make two or three trips to each field from their home barn on county roads, Richards said. They also are driving supply trucks that haul seed and fertilizer from field to field.
“The increased size and power of the equipment and tools allow more field work to be completed in less time, at less expense and lower-cost goods,” Richards said. “The bad news is getting that equipment on the county roads to the various fields.”
Growth in rural parts of the county creates additional challenges. Parcels of farmland become surrounded by development as more and more houses are built. Richards has found that to get to some of his fields, his only option is passing through a subdivision.
Taking a large piece of machinery down a residential road can be tricky, particularly if people park their vehicles on the street.
“At one point, we went into a subdivision in the afternoon. By the time we came out, people had come home from work, and often times, they park on the street,” Richards said. “If it’s not staggered, we’ve had to go to people’s doors to ask them if they could move their car.”
The safest plan is to take a less-traveled route to their fields, and most farmers have mapped those out in advance of the season, Richards said. Any option to avoid traffic is better, even if it takes longer to get there.
“We want to get there safely, but we also want it to be safe for the drivers,” Richards said.
Major thoroughfares, such as Whiteland Road, County Road 144 and State Road 44, present obstacles that many farmers have no choice but to cross.
“We don’t want to be on that road any more than people want us to be on that road,” said Chris Hendricks, a Franklin farmer and president of the Johnson County Farm Bureau. “We’re trying to get from our point A to point B in the quickest time and as safely as we can.”
Hendricks farms fields on the east side of Franklin and has seen the traffic on the outskirts of the city increase as development has grown.
On occasion, he’ll need to drive a tractor on or across State Road 44. He has heard complaints from people about why the machinery is on the roads in the first place. His response is that there’s no other way to get to the fields he needs to farm.
“It’s a high-stress time for us. Sometimes I have to gather myself back in and tell myself that people don’t know, they don’t understand what it’s like and what we’re trying to do here,” Hendricks said.
State police advise that in the spring and fall, when farmers have to move from field to field, drivers need to take extra precautions on roads. Be flexible about letting tractors pass and avoid pulling over across from another obstacle such as a mailbox or a telephone pole.
The easiest way to make spring planting safer for farmers and drivers is to slow down, said Kathleen Dutro, spokeswoman for the Indiana Farm Bureau.
Farm vehicles move at a top speed of 25 mph. On country roads, with cars traveling 50 mph or more, vehicles come up on a slow-moving machine in a surprisingly short amount of time, she said.
Technological advances have led to larger tractors that can self-propel, use GPS tracking for precise planting and have other improvements that make farmers’ jobs easier.
But they are still slow-moving machinery, said Bright, who farms about 1,500 acres around Bargersvile.
It takes a significant distance and time for tractors and other farm vehicles to stop and then to get up to speed.
“We can’t just stop. Then to get going again takes time,” Bright said. “It’s not that we want people to just get out of our way, it’s that it’s so much simpler for a car to pull over and come to a stop and let us keep moving, as far as the flow of traffic.”
At the same time, farmers also have a responsibility to ensure that planting season is safe, Dutro said.
Machinery should be marked with the reflective triangles that signify a slow-moving vehicle. Farmers should try to stay off the roads when traffic will be heaviest, such as during morning rush hour or when schools let out.
“They don’t always have that luxury. This year is particularly tricky since they’re so late getting in the fields because of the rain, so they’re getting anxious,” Dutro said. “Still, it’s farmers’ responsibilities to try and minimize the amount of wear and tear on people’s patience.”
The heavy farm traffic on county roads likely will let up in the coming weeks. Farmers are finishing planting and fertilizing, meaning less machinery will be needed to go from field to field.
“Hopefully in the next couple weeks we can get planting done and the crisis will be over,” Dutro said. “But then there will be harvest again, and we need to be alert all over again come September.”
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Source: Daily Journal, https://bit.ly/1L7FXWF
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Information from: Daily Journal, https://www.dailyjournal.net
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