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SW Ohio | How do the openers look, are they installed the correct way, and are the seed drop tubes intact and installed correctly?
This is my 3rd year with my 5400, and still don't really have understand it completely. I only use it for no-till wheat/rye so now that i've got it close to where i want it i just let it be. I bought it very cheap($2200), but the PO's had things all screwed up and it took a while for me to figure it out. In between the openers there is a plastic seed tube to drop the seed in the furrow. Some rows they were missing, and some they were backwards. What was happening was the seed wasn't falling into the furrow, or was getting dropped forward into the openers and thrown outside of the furrow. I had no clue at first until there were several rows that had poor emergence and the wheat was scattered around. I got to looking and noticed a lot of seed treatment on the openers which didn't seem right to me. As for the coulters, i run them fairly shallow and let the openers do the work.
The only thing i still struggle with and don't think can be fixed is how much dirt is moved and ridged by the openers. We got 4.2" of rain the day after i planted our wheat, which lead to a ton of dirt/residue getting washed around and really made a mess of the field. There is a spring tooth harrow on the back that doesn't really do anything. I just don't see who the genius was that decided to use a vee opener with no way to bring dirt back in and close the furrow. With that being said this is year is the best stand of wheat we've had in a long time, aside from what was washed out/buried. I would love to go to a single disc opener drill, but we only put out 10-20 acres of wheat so no way i can justify the $10-20k it'd take to get a 750 that isn't completely clapped out. | |
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CaseIH 5400 no till wheat, doing a terrible job
