[Twix]

First year with a Bourgault 7700 air tank that has a 1 year old pdm pro low output metering auger in it. Wondering how accurate these metering augers are with canola and how many times to calibrate it. Going to use a few totes of canola seed this year and very nervous the rate will be applying heavy. No scale on the tank.

Dealer salesman says to fill the tank, prime 5 gallons of canola seed out and then do 2-3 stationary calibrations until the variance is 1-2% between calibrations and then start seeding. No need to calibrate again. Is this the way that 7000 series air tanks get calibrated, just stationary and then seed and they will be accurate?

I am nervous about the above method, but would be exited if it was that accurate. My old 6550 air tank, I would calibrate stationary and then again after seeding 20 acres and the calibration was always different after seeding a few acres. Always seemed to apply 0.2 lbs/ac heavy no matter how many times that I calibrated.

 

[meskie]

Ours was really close last year on the same tank. We have the scale on the saddle tank so can track it a bit better. We only use bags and still only put a few in at a time.
We always calibrate it to start off then after doing a few acres and maybe once more if we feel like it’s not going on proper.

 

[cnd]

Not much help but I will say that I dumped 35 bags into my Horsch Anderson last week and it came out PERFECT! 348 acres the alarm came on and I have less than half a 5 gallon pail of seed left. Both tanks of fertilizer came out perfect too. I use to think our Bourgault was accurate......

 

[dumbfarmer]

Calibrate it then go seed 10acres and check it again. Sometimes it seems products compact a little with seeding and bouncing.

 

[Twix]

Calibrate it then go seed 10acres and check it again. Sometimes it seems products compact a little with seeding and bouncing.

Thats how I always calibrated my 6000 series cart, but was told the 7000 series with the PDM pro metering augers did not require the second calibration after seeding 10 acres. Was just wondering if that was true?

Not much help but I will say that I dumped 35 bags into my Horsch Anderson last week and it came out PERFECT! 348 acres the alarm came on and I have less than half a 5 gallon pail of seed left. Both tanks of fertilizer came out perfect too. I use to think our Bourgault was accurate......

With the price of seed and fertilizer those kinds of accuracy results are becoming very important. I wish that Horsch Anderson had a little bigger sales presence here so I could see their products in action. The few that have been sold in the area have take a huge beating on resale value due to the lack of dealers.

 

[ABduster]

We have a 2015 7000 tow between cart, and I would say on canola it is fairly accurate, but for the price of canola seed I would do 10 or 20 ac and recalibrate.
I would recommend to recalibrate, if you are changing lot numbers, got some L340PC seed this year, with different lot numbers, and same TKW, and found out that we were seeding bit on the heavy side with the last lot.

 

[meskie]

Thats how I always calibrated my 6000 series cart, but was told the 7000 series with the PDM pro metering augers did not require the second calibration after seeding 10 acres. Was just wondering if that was true?




With the price of seed and fertilizer those kinds of accuracy results are becoming very important. I wish that Horsch Anderson had a little bigger sales presence here so I could see their products in action. The few that have been sold in the area have take a huge beating on resale value due to the lack of dealers.

Stationary calibration on our 7700 is a lot better then our 6000 cart but we still recalibrate just cause you have one chance to do it right.

 

[bsigg]

The Low output auger is really accurate, only differences in calibration come from bushel weight.

 

[Kettle]

Regardless of how often we calibrate ours is always 0.5-0.7 heavy.

 

[bjtjjl]

Both of ours are quit accurate. Usually not out more than a couple acres on a mini bull bag. Usually do what others said and cal after seeding a bit. It compacts and changes sometimes.

 

[kauppfarms]

it’s very accurate. We dump in totes and don’t think twice about it, I’ll never go back to bags (other than the few we need for finishing fields). We did have a scale on our 7000 series carts however so that helped with the confidence.

 

[brazil08]

Not much help but I will say that I dumped 35 bags into my Horsch Anderson last week and it came out PERFECT! 348 acres the alarm came on and I have less than half a 5 gallon pail of seed left. Both tanks of fertilizer came out perfect too. I use to think our Bourgault was accurate......

Assuming these are 50lb bags that works out to 5lbs/acre. Do you always seed this heavy? I would be curious where you are, what kind of yields, and what kind of a Horsch anderson machine that is.

FWIW - Using a planter yesterday(15" spacing), seeded 400acres at 2.6lbs/a. Did not put this all in at once(3 times) even though could have as it did not vary a bit. This was the "highest" seeding rate that have used with a planter since started using one 6 years ago, but it was also the biggest seed size and only a 150000 plants/acre population target so here is hoping. Friday the 13's have been lucky for me over the years - lol.

 

[Grumpie]

Since we seed 4250000 seed / bag , we should compare seed / row or square ft .

 

[joesixpack]

Deadly accurate. However between seeding seasons the steel part of the metering tube will corrode a bit. What happens then is you run a fresh spring calibration and it will be a little low because of that. So you bump the rate to compensate but then as the tube polishes up and product flows easier your rate increases a bit.
We always just start out with last years calibration and then check it after the first quarter and it’s almost exactly back to where it was.
All the other augers exact same story except though the plastic augers do wear down over time and loose capacity.
If you run a calibration on a meter that has sat over season it’s wise to run it again at least after the first quarter because it will be flowing more once it’s polished up.

 

[drylandfarmer]

Deadly accurate. However between seeding seasons the steel part of the metering tube will corrode a bit. What happens then is you run a fresh spring calibration and it will be a little low because of that. So you bump the rate to compensate but then as the tube polishes up and product flows easier your rate increases a bit.
We always just start out with last years calibration and then check it after the first quarter and it’s almost exactly back to where it was.
All the other augers exact same story except though the plastic augers do wear down over time and loose capacity.
If you run a calibration on a meter that has sat over season it’s wise to run it again at least after the first quarter because it will be flowing more once it’s polished up.

X2

 

[sasksodbuster]

We have replaced some of our plastic augers with the stainless steel augers as they wear out. Over a season the plastic augers on heavy rates of fertilizer have a noticeable drop in output, we will do a calibration half way thru the season.