Mr M,

Thank you for the plot results. That is about what we have seen in northern drill vs planter beans comparisons over the years.

What were the planted populations on the drilled vs rowed? did you compare the same variety drilled and planted?

To be honest, a 3.5 bu/a of bean average advantage over 10 years x maybe 5.50 avg per bu = $19.25 per acre gross income difference. This is maybe 2/3 of a bag of good seed? Plus in a corn/bean rotation possibly the cost maintaining two separate planting machines (unless you plant wheat or other small grain also or have enough acres to run two machines at the same time).

As some growers shift to more corn compared to beans (maybe 2/3 - 1/3) on average the cost numbers shift more to the planter.

If we say for discussion a 10 year avg yield of maybe 50 bu/a, then 3.5 bu is a 7% difference. About half of this is usually eaten up by the higher seed populations and seed cost generally planted with drills (200K+) compared to planted (160k-).

If we look at net profit vs gross yield and income I think the numbers show that row planted beans make sense for many corn/bean growers. jmho.

Jim at Dawn