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| I have a JD 7000 8 row planter and had planned on putting new Precision Planting meters on it this winter, But when I talked to the PP dealer he said that it could be a good idea to look at v-sets instead. My question is has any one converted a 7000 from finger meters to PP v-sets. I am still waiting for him to get back to me with the price but he said in the ball park of 3500 to 4000 for the package (meters, vac, hoses everything complete). Will the better seed placement justify the extra cost going from new finger meters to v- sets. I rebuilt the planter two winters ago (new discs, bearings, chains, drives, monitor, and repainted) so have a bit invested in this planter.
Thanks
Edited by glenman 12/19/2013 08:06
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Tennessee | How many acres of corn do you grow? From my experience emergence is more important than placement. It will take several acres with a yield increase to pay the difference. Might find a newer planter in good shape for close to the same investment. |
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Guymon, OK | I'm just going to say that our Precision finger meters do a very fine job. V-sets might be a slight improvement, but I think there are too many other things going on the field that will have a bigger effect on yield than a couple-percent improvement in seed spacing. |
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Mid Michigan | We updated our 7000 to Precision parts but stayed with the finger pickup. I think it does a very good job, we get the units tested every other year and always above 96% placement so for us it wasnt worth the extra cost. |
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SWMN | Wouldnt think twice. do it. you will not regret it. And yes the rest of the planter is important to have up to snuff also. |
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SWMN | 96%? you need a new meter tech or need to manage your seed size better!! no precison meter should be testing less than 98-99% V-sets will be in the 99.8% area with no matter what seed you have. |
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southern MN | The PP guy is a salesman, with the V stuff he can continue to sell you more stuff.....
The PP fingers do well, if you want a much more complicated planter you could buy one much more complicatd from the factory....
Paul |
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68340 | If you are doing a 20/20 set up and have to read their control screen you need guidance for your tractor. No way can a person read and understand what is coming across the screen in a couple of seconds. You need to watch it for an extened period of time. You can not watch your mark and the screen at the same time and do a good job of having evenly spaced rows. |
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| The only other thing I can add is v sets will be 99% accurate at 7 mph and a finger meter will not. That doesn't mean it will remain accurate through the seed tubes. Will your planter tractor have the hydraulic capacity for a vac planter. |
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thumb of mi | Vset will be much more flexable for different seed size, shape and speed. You will need a tractor with enough hydraulics to run the vac.
As for the 2020 screen you don't have to have it to run the meters but its nice. It you don't have auto steer you can look at the colors of the buttons. If there are green don't sweat it. If yellow or red you will have to figure out why |
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Western Ky. | I know this will sound like a dumb question, but, what does xx percent placement mean? |
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Eastern Ont | Well put it this way , Local PP salesman order a brand New JD planter with out the Finger pickups so he could put PP finger units on it,
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Walnut Grove MN USA | In my opinion no. I converted a older 7200 vac over to Esets that required new complete meters and boxes and after it was all done wish I would have traded planters instead. You have to all that plus the fan and hoses and maybe even the transmission too. I am not a fan of the finger units but I don't think you will gain enough to make it worth doing. Use round seed in the fingers and they plant pretty darn good. |
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Cambridge, southwestern Nebraska | Wouldn't the v-sets also give you variable rate and row shutoff or is that extra? |
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| It would if you had the electric drive. However, the vset would just be the meter which can be driven by current hardware on the planter. |
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20 Miles West of Indianapolis Indiana | Gro-Mor Farms - 12/19/2013 08:34 I know this will sound like a dumb question, but, what does xx percent placement mean?
its a reading that the 20/20 monitor shows you... its XX% placement of seeds to your desired tolerance. singulation, skips and doubles all play into account i believe... |
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20 Miles West of Indianapolis Indiana | i have the presion meters in a Kinze 2600 along with the 20/20 monitor ( a kinze 2600 is basically a john deere 7000 in a blue shirt).... i love it. i have a friend who has a vac with the 20/20... his spacing is better then mine... but i basically did not want to go to a vac.... with a properly maintained planter (chains, drive, meters, graphite, meter adjustment) i can plant usually within 1-2% of him.... with varying seed sizes and without a 20/20 monitor your probably not planting anywhere what you'd really want to once you saw what the monitor showed |
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SW Mn | Just put v-sets on my 7000 this year and love them. They plant every seed size, or even a mix of sizes perfectly. Will they pay for them selves? I think so. In your case if you are going to spend $1500 on pp fingers all ready I think jumping to the v-sets is a much easier call. I had the pp fingers and they worked well if you could get the seed size you had them calibrated for but it seems you always have a number or two every year that you can only get in a size you don't want. One nice thing about the pp finger meters is you can tweak them easily by adjusting the brush but if you don't have a 20/20 monitor your just going to be guessing on that and even with a 20/20 you still cant get it perfect if you have it calibrated for say 40-45# rounds and you have to plant some 62# rounds. With the finger meters it seems you would often have a row that is not quite right that you have to tweak or maybe you get a cracked kernel or something stuck under a finger but with the v-sets they just worked perfectly all season long. I've added a lot of PP stuff to my planter (started with a 20/20 monitor) but if I was to start over again the v-sets would be the first. |
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Humeston, IA | FWIW: I put V-Sets on my 35 year old 7000 12R30 last spring and was able to plant at 6.2-6.5 mph with better singulation than I did with the Precision finger meters I previously had (and limited to 5 mph). Getting finished sooner probably paid back the investment, as my later planted corn was stunted by hard rain worse than my earlier. |
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ND | Make sure you have a closed center tractor to run planter if you switch. If you plant at 4.5 to 5 mph either planter will be a copy cat of each other. If you stay with finger planter-use medium round seeds & you'll be at 98 to 99%, using flat seed & you'll be at 90 to 92% accurate, according to past seed belt testing. In my opinion vac & finger are about the same at 5 mph. Another factor is your transmission for seed population-here you'd be better trading up to a 7200 or newer planter to get better at population settings, your limited staying with your 7000 & your seed shaft is a lot lighter than the newer JD planters. |
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ne iowa | Run a kinze with pp finger pickup and works great at 5mph. I would question the additional cost of vac on that old of planter. Both will work fine |
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Iowa | paul the original - 12/19/2013 07:01
The PP guy is a salesman, with the V stuff he can continue to sell you more stuff.....
The PP fingers do well, if you want a much more complicated planter you could buy one much more complicatd from the factory....
Paul
Just do the PP finger meters and drive 5 mph. Get a 12-row if you need to drive faster than 5mph w your 8 row. I would think the overall condition of the entire planter would be more important than throwing all that other stuff on it. You could go w a used 20-20 if you wanted to shell out 4 or 5k on an 8 row(I was quoted $5900 for a used 20-20 w new sensors, wiring harness, depth pressure pins and seed tubes for a 12 row). |
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Claremont,MN | You should see at least a one percent improvement in singulation and each percent increase in singulation gets you one percent increase in yield. If you are thinking about variable rate or row clutches the vDrive will do both of those while eliminating chains and bearings and all the problems that go with them, but vDrive only works with vSet meters. |
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Corn planter upgrade questions
