| TNalfalfa - 6/27/2012 14:32 Thinking ahead to next spring... This dry weather has exposed some planting concerns. I have many spindly corn stalks and after digging some up, noticed the nodal roots weren't able to break the sidewall compaction. I have a 20/20 so I don't feel like I had excessive down pressure for the depth I was planting. Granted, it was very dry and we had trouble keeping the openers at full depth across the whole field and had to run more pressure than normal. Next year, I plan on having AirForce on the planter and have already put curvetines on (after corn was done)... I tried to plant at about 2". I don't really want to plant shallower because of crows and turkeys, but I'm scared that trying to plant deeper caused us to run too much pressure and caused the compaction. Thoughts??? What slots do you run your gauge wheels in on a XP unit for corn. I'd like to plant 2" deep. I noticed the book says each increment is 1/4" but it doesn't say where it starts. I measured the depth of several seeds, but never felt comfortable with the difference between checking in front of the closing wheels and reality. Sidewall breakage was crucial this year, as some have mentioned. Of course, smooth OEM closing wheels were a disaster. But spoked closing wheels were no guarantee of success if there wasn't enough pressure being applied to them -- which I often found to be the case. Where it never rained after planting for 40 or 50 days (if at all), the lack of sidewall breakage was a wreck for crown root development. I don't think it was possible to run so little downpressure on the row unit that sidewall smearing didn't occur -- this is an inherent part of creating the furrow with disc blades (except in blow sand), so a no-tiller must ensure that the sidewall gets broken up after it is smeared. The indented (CIH-style) gauge tires allow some breakage from the lift of the blades as they rotate, albeit with more risk of misplaced seed. The second method is spoked or tined closing wheels, which, if operated correctly (and designed well), can pretty much wipe out the sidewall smear. This year really drove that point home. Ouch. |
planter set-up
