nextlevelagandturf - 3/21/2012 20:51 I have a customer in central GA planting corn no-till with JD1700 maxemerge planter. Planting into 5 ft tall headed out rye that has been rolled and sprayed with gramoxone last week. Has double-disk seed furrow openers w/ single coulter 20 inches ahead of furrow openers. Has disk opener in front and 2 inches to the side for side band liquid. His seed depth is inconsistent from 0 - 1.5 inches and would like to be at a consistent 2 inch depth. His fields are flat to rolling sandy loam to loam. Does anyone with experience have suggestions? I agree with the previous posts that lack of down-pressure on the row unit may be the culprit. I would certainly look to that first. It may be lack of frame weight, or simply lack of transfer of weight from the toolbar onto the row unit. I wrote a newsletter on the various 'sins' of keeping the row units in the soil at the proper depth -- might shed some light on your customer's situation. http://www.exapta.com/news/nws_seeding_mistakes_dec2011.pdf Rye that size would have quite a soddy root system, requiring more down-pressure to hold the opener blades at the correct depth. Also, all the aboveground biomass acts a bit like a shock absorbing mat that takes a bit more pressure to go thru. Also, I would move the side-band fertilizer openers farther from the seed row, so that the seed openers are running in truly undisturbed soil which makes for a more cleanly cut furrow (less sidewall crumbling, fewer voids). Similarly, I would make sure that the fertilizer side-band openers never run deeper than the seed -- in fact, I'd prefer that they only run about an inch deep. Again, this improves seed placement. And, agronomically, in no-till with good mulch cover, there's no reason to place fertilizer deep. best regards, | 
problems with no-till planter seed placement
