|
Somerville, Indiana | You are comparing three different drills but all have the same no till disadvantages. Trash falls back in the coulter track before the 'light duty' drill drops the seed. We have found the only type system that works in this situation is a good single opener that opens the seed and places the seed at the same time, OR work the ground-loose valuable moisture, planting time, and topsoil. I am not advocating no till, we use it because all our ground is HEL. We used a Deere air drill this year with better than fair results, could have used a little more down pressure with new opener disks. The Deere is a great drill in straw, but among the highest in maintenence. Hyd adjustable downpressure with sharp properly sized openers are two great things about the Deere drill. Slice and plant has always worked, not as good as working the ground, but the best one pass seeding system here. Coulter ahead of the seeding unit never has been a good one pass system with high crop residue, with residue falling back in the seed trench ahead of openers a main problem. Seed slot depth ahead of the seeding unit is number two problem, the opener disk can never be exactly the right depth as what we want the seeding unit to drop the seed-too many variables, one being combine tracks as you have stated.
Looking back I see you are using a 5500 soybean planter as trial number 3? No coulter cart? I am thinking not enough weight on row unit being the main problem there. We have changed a few things on our IH corn planter to increase down pressure that payed back well for us.
Edited by dave morgan 7/24/2009 05:55
| |
|
Irrigated double crop soybeans
