Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | Last year I installed the Wilger Flow Monitoring system which appears to be quite similar.
We use two products with a 24 row Deere 1770NT planter. We had been using 24 flow columns for each product. The Wilger system allows a paddle wheel type flow meter assembly to be attached to the top of each flow column. It appears the Flow board does this also.
These flow meters are connected to a transmitter that is mounted on the planter and powered by 12V. The transmitter communicates with an Android tablet wirelessly in the tractor cab. An app in the Android tablet displays a bar graph similar to what is shown on the Flow board website. There is no indication of true ground speed, the operator must enter in the anticipated ground speed.
A cheap Android tablet from Wal-Mart did not seem to work with the App, I did need to purchase a higher end Samsung. There is no app for an IOS device such as an Apple iPad.
We installed the system and tested each product which seemed to work but when it came time to actually plant there seemed to be problems. One branch seemed to be dead. Since we didn't want to take the time to investigate and everything seemed to be working fine as far as the application went we just continued to plant and really didn't use the system.
Was it worth it over just the Wilger flow columns themselves? Honestly I don't know. We really never have much plugging problem through the years and with auto steer, the operator can turn around and observe the flow columns directly.
Although I'm sure when can get the system to work properly, I probably wouldn't do it again. Other planter enhancements probably have a better ROI.
Edited by tedbear 1/2/2026 08:45
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On site FMS Flowboard
