seeder recommendations

[Tim Harrigan]

That planter was frequently used for a variation of no-till known as ridge-till. Ridge till was more common west of the Mississippi on soils that were poorly drained. Ridges were built in the fall and then the tops were sliced off in the spring to expose the seedbed. There would typically be no residue in the seedbed because it was thrown into the inter-row area by the sweep that sliced off the top of the ridge. The ridging helped dry the soil early in the spring and then exposing the seedbed with no residue speeded soil warm-up. There was a very low-level of adoption in MI years ago, I do not know anyone doing it anymore since no-till planters have improved. So although it is technically a no-till planter it is not designed to work well in residue as it is. When it was used for more standard no-till it was used with a cutting coulter to slice the residue so the runner type opener would not drag it along. The knock on it was furrow side-wall compaction and heavy residue in the seedbed. Zone tillage with multiple coulters and/or sweeping the residue aside with row cleaners is much more effective for warming the seedbed for early spring planting.

You might want to see what else you can find, I really think you want either a single or double-disk opener.

[Andy Carson]

Thanks for the thoughts Tim, I had my suspicions about this arrangement too. I think it would be a good idea for me to do a little reading about all these various no-till and min-till practices. Some practices I can do with animals and some things are surely going to be difficult, but think I should be more knowledgeable about the tools (including planters) and techniques. That way, I can make better choices about other tools that might be useful to me… Can you recommend any books or other reliable resources that could give me a better background?

[Tim Harrigan]

http://www.mwps.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=c_Products.viewProduct&catID=720&productID=6482&skunumber=MWPS%2D45&crow=1

Here is one that comes to mind. It is a 2000 publication but it has a lot of good information. Check with MWPS, you could also try Amazon or ebay.

[sickle hocks]

Great thread, thanks… I need to sow grains, grasses and legumes too…Apart from their being crazy expensive, do you think the new ATV seeding equipment could be adaptable?? These are combined tillage/seeding/cultipack or harrow machines…not really a drill, but disks, broadcasts and harrows in one pass…there is a ‘drill’ attachment that would let it also work as a row planter of sorts..

The broadcaster is electric not ground driven which is a drag…would horse speed be too variable?? Is it too much for a team to pull?

plot planter:
http://www.theplotmaster.com/400a.html

drill attachment:
http://www.theplotmaster.com/graindrill2.pdf

two other versions:
http://www.schaffert.com/other_equipment/plot_planters.html

Or I could disk with horses and use a hand broadcast seeder and harrow in.., or hand broadcast into stubble and then disc in..?? and save thousands.

[Tim Harrigan]

Without looking at it too close my guess is it would be OK for the grain, grass and legumes. I have some questions about the corn and other row crops. When they say it can be used for “row crops” it makes me question what they mean. I am sure there is no seed singulation so if you want to cover much ground you are going to use a lot of seed and do a lot of thinning. I think it really depends on what your main use of it is.

[near horse]

@Tim Harrigan 23608 wrote:

http://www.mwps.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=c_Products.viewProduct&catID=720&productID=6482&skunumber=MWPS%2D45&crow=1

Here is one that comes to mind. It is a 2000 publication but it has a lot of good information. Check with MWPS, you could also try Amazon or ebay.

Andy – You might try university interlibrary loan. Surprising what ag pubs the land grant schools have in their library

A couple of clicks and here you go:

Delaware Valley College
Joseph Krauskopf Memorial Library

DOYLESTOWN, PA 18901 United States

[Anonymous]

Countrymouse
Years ago Allis Chalmers built a row planter that had indivdual units that were driven buy the rear packer wheel. Each unit was selfcontained and bolted to a toolbar. Most were built with a wheel lift frame but were easily adapted to a three point toolbar. The seed hopper could be adapted to John Deere plastic seed plates with a simple plastic adapter. I have seen both shoe and double disk openers. I would think that if you are working you ground the double disk opener would do a sufficient job for beans or corn. It would be no good for your small seed, but I think two of these units ( if you could find any) could be easily adapted to your situation. I’m thinking they called it a “700” but I’m not positive. I’ll do some more research.

[dominiquer60]

Sickle Hock,

Our farm, back in the day (1940), bought a brand new horse drawn John Deere grain drill. The unused tounge, yoke and eveners is still up in the rafters. Every year we carefully take it out to seed down our oats that we need for feed, at the same time we also seed down clover, brome and timothy for the next hay rotation. It does a good job. Once oats are done it carefully gets cleaned and oiled and put away for the year.

We do several other cover crops for the vegetable ground and our winter rye crop for seed and straw. We could take the old John Deere out, but we are perfectly happy to use a handheld or tractor broadcast spinner and a harrow or disc for these crops (winter and annual rye, clover, oats and peas, etc). It seems like once our season gets going there is no time for cleaning and caring for the old John Deere like we should, so we do things the quicker way. Or perhaps not quicker when I use my cattle to harrow the crop in, but they work handy in odd shaped or small plots, and I enjoy working them and look for any reason to do so. The only disadvantage I see is that we put down twice the seeding rate with this method, especially for cover crops when we want a really thick stand for biomass.

Erika

[Andy Carson]

It took a long while to find someone parting out an otherwise perfectly good no-till planter that I could take one unit off of, but I finally found one. This unit is off a Kinze 2000 planter and has a Dawn row cleaner and coulter unit on the front. Probably overkill to have the coulter and the row cleaners, but they came as a unit and I thought I would try it out. Now to adapt… The bad news is that I have to rig up some system to turn the seeder mechanism as the drive wheels are (obviously) gone. The good news (great news!) is the thing has an “off” switch of sorts on the side. Nice to not have to lift this thing!!! I might even turn that space where the insecticide box was designed to sit into a human seat. I looks like there is room there for me as long as I don’t through the thing out of balance… Another unexpected bonus was the guy selling this planter also had a cultivator in EXCELLENT condition that I bought for $50 and about an hour of help putting away hay. I’ll keep you all updated about adapting this planter. It sound like there might be some interest out there.

[Tim Harrigan]

Do you have a forecart? Maybe you could mount it on that.

[Andy Carson]

That might be the best way to go Tim, but I’ll have to draw this out. I do have a forecart, but I just don’t use it much. I am concerned about the ability of the forecart/seeder combo to turn tightly unless either the attachment point can rotate (as if drawn as an implement) or if I can figure out how to lift it. I have this thought that guys who use 3 point hitch planter units lift them up when they need to turn tightly… Maybe this is wrong? Also, the attachment point would have to resist the tendency of the planter to tip from side to side and simultaneously be capable of some forward and backward tilting so as to follow the contours of the land. I’ll have to play with it a bit still, but my first temptation was to mount some outriggers off the front of the unit that extend to the left and right about 3 feet and put some skids on the bottom. With the right gear ratio, I can probably drive the unit off a gear mounted to front coulter. All that could be drawn behind the forecart too. I don’t think I am going to sit on the back of the seeder, as it really sinks down and feels unstable when I sit there. It’s also a bit too wide to be comfortable… If I end up not using the forecart, I am also going to have to put some thought into how I might cover that front coulter. My horse doesn’t usually step back, but that thing looks nasty. It is, actually, I got a small wound moving it.

[Tim Harrigan]

Maybe you could winch it up on the headlands. Might get a lot of slip on that coulter in tilled ground.

[Andy Carson]

I got alot done on the planter mods and thought I would share. I played around with techniques to keep the planter from tipping and found out that it’s not as big of a problem as I thought it would be. The planter is heavy and tall, but most of the weight is carried very low in the wheels, coulters, and frame. I bolted an angle iron to the front and mounted a couple heavy spring tines off to the side and it’s quite stable just with these. I can always go wider if I need to later. I also played alot with how to drive the seeder mechanism. At first, it seemed the seeder mechanism took quite a pull to get it to work, then I realized it was all gummed up from treated seed debris. I spent a half day cleaning everything and putting it back together. It ran ALOT easier after that. In the end I decided to run it off a biycle wheel, partially because the chains match. I found a used boys mountain bike that had a smaller 20 inch wheel and had a wide range of gears in the back and knobby tires. The tires have enough traction to run the mechanism even without additional downforce. One of the nice things this bike was it was one of those “suspension bikes.” Flipped upside down, using the rear suspension component off this frames lets the wheel move up and down with the contours of the land with pretty even downforce. The range of gears on the bike, together with the two gears left on the planter, allow for spacing from 2 inches to about 7.5 inches. I can flip off seeder fingers to achieve even great spacing, up to 1 seed every 90 inches or so. I think it’s ending up to be a pretty slick machine. I hope it works as well as I think it will…

[Tim Harrigan]

How will you pick it up to turn it? Tines might drag a lot of residue. Looks good, though. Looking forward to seeing how it works.

[Andy Carson]

Perhaps I will mount some skids to the ends of the spring tines to slide over the residue instead of dragging it. I think this is a good fix. The tines do assume a slight rearward angle when the coulter is in the ground, and they are spaced about 5.5 inches apart, so I was hoping they wouldn’t drag anything. Skids are easy though… I played with wheels a bit on the ends, but the design got complicated really fast. At least on paper, the wheels would need to follow the terrain, which would require some sort of spring arrangement (as do the spring tines). The springs themselves would need to be pretty strong to prevent tipping (by my estimation), and probably under some tension during normal operation. This removes weight from the coulter, which could be overcome with more weight on the planter, but I am trying to avoid that. I also had some concern about the planter running away if it was an “all wheel” arrangement. This is probably unlikely, but I can push it on concrete without too much difficulty and a runaway would be very very bad, so I think I’m going to stick with skids. I am going to mount some handles on the back to pick it up with. It’s really pretty easy to pick up the rear of it, as so much of the weight is up front. I am curious about the overall weight, especially because there aren’t many obvious places to mount weight (especially if I want to mount the weight low). As this will be used on ground that will be disked or “chiseled” and disked, is there an idea of how much weight I should be shooting for? I think it weighs about 300 lbs as it sits. I am curious if this weight is worth a try??? I am still toying with the diea of finding a place to sit on it. This would make it 500 pounds and I myself have a unique “automatic balancing” feature that most weight doesn’t have. I also don’t have to pick myself up (any more than normally) when I move maneuver the planter.

[Author]

Posts