|
| I guess it depends on your soil type. I used the old system with the disks directly across from each other for quite a while, but it would clog up with root balls, wet dirt, alien artifacts, etc. Being offset does keep it from clogging as much. There is a spiked disk options also which I understand is better for notil since it breaks up dry dirt better so the seed is covered.
The 14 year bean planter project:
When I built my first 15" bean planter I started with a 16 row IH500 and made a 16R15 planter. The 500 units may have been an improvement over the 400 units since they had a parallel linkage, but having a harrow behind the planter helped a lot. I later updated to yetter planter units (more like JD/Kinze on a 400 straight bar) which I'm not sure was a big improvement. Later I found a 3 point caddy and made a coulter bar. Eventually we found a couple of 8RW IH800's for $2000 and installed the 800 boxes and planter units (the original ih500 bar was a 7x7). Also the 800 units meant I could drop the coulter bar. It was a decent planter, but wide going down the road and only held 30 bushels. I found a GP drill for $2500 and reconfigured it to fit the 800 units and added the SI meters. I've had to raise the seed boxes higher to get a better seed tube angle and probably need to set them back a little as well. I have about no transport ground clearance, so I really need mount the planter unit bar higher (and raise the boxes more) or reconfigure the lift wheels (I'm using about 12" of cylinder stops now). We bought a kinze TL 16row that we could add the pusher units to at high cost or keep using the 'drill'. Especially this year the notil capabilites of the 800 units will be needed. The downfall of all of this is that while you get a very capable planter for low investment it has almost no resale value.
Thanks, Pat | |
|
International Bean Planter....
