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Western Iowa | Your math is correct, but not the whole story. Here with lots of terraces I saved about 8% on seed when I put GPS on my planter (waas, 2 rows per shutoff). On 1000 acres of corn I saved about $8,000 in seed.
But the real bonus for row clutches for me is the fact that the 8% of seed is not overplanting. On 1000 acres that is about 80 acres of overplant. Last year because it turned so dry on us mid summer, Corn was about 180 in the field, and would have been about 130 on the overplant, but since I had clutches, I figure I saved about 50bu and acre on 80 acres. Thats 4000 bu of corn. At even $5/ bu that is an additional $20,000 bringing up the 1st year savings to about 28k on a 13k system. I actuallly did more corn that that last year but it figures easy at 1000 acres.
I also figure that I can get 1/2 the cost of the clutch setup when I sell or trade the planter.
I can also plant about 30-50 acres more a day in the same time because of how I can just pull in and out of endrows without paying much attention. I pickup the planter at 5mph after all the clutches have kicked in, and I drop the planter early and let the clutches kick in the planter for me. I can also plant at night a lot easier also, which I don't like, but had to do last year.
For Grain Trader, I put on air clutches on my 16 myself. It was just over 5k for the clutches, compressor, hoses ect. It was something like $2500 for the switch boxes and wire harness from Sprayer specialties. I used a remanufactured Viper Pro that cost about $5000 with a phoenix 200 antenea.
It took 2 of us 2 days to have it up and going, that included putting in all new bearings also. | |
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row clutches on kinze 2600
