shadetree - 1/8/2019 11:13 Hmmmm.........Maybe someone with some manufacturing experience and also consults on no-till and no-till fertility issues, could manufacture and sell a similar designed opener that would fit on a 1890? ;-) Is there a reason a side banding opener couldn't be manufactured for a 1890? The fertilizer band would be adjacent but not below the seed and you would retain the seed firming capabilities with a ninja flap or a bonilla tab. Obviously there would be more disturbance, but I would gladly trade more disturbance for placing urea on the soil surface. It looks like the Cross-Slot has had something similar for quite a few years now. There's no market for replacement openers. But if you come up with $20 million in financing and want to run a company to build complete NT drills, I'd help design something :-) It takes a lot of extra downpressure to hold another blade in the soil. You're wanting double the number of blades, and operating them to the same depth as the seed openers. Also, the closer you run a side-band opener to the seed opener, the more it screws up seed placement. I take it you're not satisfied with the MRBs of an 1895? For most people in most regions, it's such a burden in labor and equipment to apply N sub-surface that the economics look rather lousy. And it destroys a lot of mulch cover. I'd much rather apply on the surface. For a 5 - 10% gain in N efficiency for subsurface, most dryland NT farming can't afford to be placing it subsurface. It's just not economical. | 
Any AgTalkers going to be seeding with Case 500DS this spring?
