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West Central, MO | Here's what we've got: about 200 A of corn every year & about 500 A of beans. Most of these fields are 30 +/- acres (only 2 are larger than 90 A) and very irregularly shaped. This is all heavy bottom ground.
Tractors are 8330, 8630 and 5625. Combine is an old 7720 that had a lot of costly repairs last year, was very bad at leaving beans in the field and was only able to run about 2 mph. 8 row head (yes we currently have a 12 row planter) and 20' platform. 7200 12r30 planter and 15' 1560 drill. Tillage equipment is a 36' disk, 42' & 24' field cultivator.
For planting corn, the 7200 does a good job. It also does a good job on beans WHEN we can get them planted early......problem is, we haven't been able to successfully do that the last 3 years. And, a major problem with the bean planting is time, or lack of it! Every year, in these bottoms, whenever we get rained out it's nothing for us to be another 2-3 weeks (sometimes longer) before we can get back in and finish. 3 years in-a-row it's taken us 6 weeks +/- to get all of our beans planted because of rain delays.
Here's what we're thinking (as I've posted before): trading the 7200 & 1560 for a Kinze 16/31 so we can 'kill 2 birds' with 1 planter. And, so that we can get our beans planted in a timely fashion. Not only do I think this will boost our yields (early planting) but I believe a 40' planter will help increase yields, decrease seed costs and decrease fuel costs. However, one of our partners is convinced that a 40' planter will be counter-productive on these irregular shaped fields and believes that it will increase overlaps. I believe just the opposite and I know we can put row shutoffs to stop the overlaps..............Problem is: none of us have any experience other than with the equipment we've currently got.
And keeping the current 7720 combine and getting another 7720 that our dealer swears is in MUCH better shape than our current one or trading for 9500-9600 series. The advantage of another 7720 is the initial cost and the fact that we can 'rob' parts and keep the combine rolling while the new parts get ordered. After seeing our current 7720 in action, this really scares me but not my partners. I'm also not convinced that another 7720 won't cost an arm and a leg in repairs every year?
How much of a factor is having an 8 row corn head when harvesting corn planted from a 12 row planter?
What would y'all do in these situations?
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What would you do? Planter & Combine ???
