Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | I had an incident with large junks of dirt one year. At that time we were getting our seed from the dealer in our seed tender. This tender had an open area where the seed went from the tank to the conveyor. We felt that mud from the tires had dried and got flipped off on the road with some of it landing in the conveyor. We emptied the CCS tank on that side to get to it. In talking with a neighbor who had somewhat the same problem, he advised removing just the hose and working a screwdriver into the tube on the CCS tank to break up a dirt plug.
Due to several factors we were never happy with our seed tender. We now fill the CCS planter in the dooryard. This works better for us since our fields are close to my dooryard and we often fill with seed and fertilizer there also. The seed is stored in ProBoxes which are delivered and stored in my old shed. The Proboxes are moved with a telehandler to my shop as needed where they are held above a regular belt conveyor to fill the CCS tanks. My nephew fashioned a diverter on top of the conveyor so the seed can be diverted to either hopper. The Proboxs are held above the lower end of the conveyor which has a chute made for the purpose to feed the seed to the conveyor. A Talc dispenser is mounted on the conveyor also.
This year I had one tube plug and tried the screwdriver trick with no success. We found through experience that we can unload a CCS hopper into an empty Probox by putting the Probox under the hopper with the planter folded. We then use the Probox chute as a funnel to direct the seed back out of the hopper into the Probox. As we were doing this, we heard a thunk. In digging through the Probox we found a nice clean looking chunk of crushed rock that was large enough that it had sheared the cotter key on the agitator drive. We speculate that this chunk may have been lying on the support portion of the Probox and not actually in the Probox. When seed quits running out of the Probox, we generally shake the joystick on the telehandler to get all the seed out. This may have dislodged the crushed rock from the underside and caused it to drop into the conveyor. For another year, I think we need to be a bit more careful and check for debris on the underside of the Proboxes.
The other year with the dirt, we ran it into a Probox and then held that Probox above yet another empty Probox with the telehandler. We opened the top box slightly so the seed could flow to the bottom box. We wathced for the dirt chucks and throw them out.
On the last day of soybean planting this year, I had a tube plug again. I removed the tube and found a chunk of corn stalk within it. I was able to get it out and the tank was about empty anyway.
So I'm not blaming the seed dealer although I noticed they had some nice crushed rock that resembles the chunk I found. I think that the debris I've seen has come from other situations, some of which we need to be more mindful of.
Edited by tedbear 5/29/2017 07:21
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Junk in pro boxes
