|
| I went to a planter course this winter and they covered this exact question. Disclaimer: it was put on by an Ag Leader dealer and AL rep but didn't push selling anything, just teaching guys how to properly set the planters.
They said for the last 4 years they've been working with farmers who are hesitant to switch to hydraulic. They put hydraulic downforce on half the planter for free and leave the other half stock. If it doesn't pay for itself in yield difference, they take the hydraulic back off free of charge. In the 4 years they've been doing this, they've never taken one back off.
The most recent planter they did was a White 24 row with air bags. Put hydraulic on 12 rows, left air on the others. In conventional tilled ground, yield difference was 4-7 bushel better with hydraulic. In areas of the field that received high traffic and tougher conditions the yield difference was 10-20 bushel better with hydraulic.In a particular field that they showed, they had tore down a building site so the ground was very inconsistent. In that area, the yield difference was 20-30 bushel better with hydraulic. Showed pictures of the stand side by side and the corn on the hydraulic was nice and even and the air was pretty inconsistent with a lot of different height in the corn.
They figured on that planter, he needed to run over 800 acres and it would pay for itself. That might have been 800 a year in for 3 years, don't remember exactly how the math was on that.
Had me sold on wanting to put hydraulic downforce on my planter but that's a little too deep for my checkbook at the moment. | |
|
Anybody seen or done a split planter down pressure study?
