[bud]

Been thinking about a new drill and have walked a lot of different fields lately. I have 10" spacing now and notice that I have lots of rows with residue on top of the furrows and the crop emergence (wheat and canola) is slower and often poorer plant counts. Black areas of furrow look great. Seems like the rear shanks are blacker than rest of them.

In looking at the 12" space drills it seems like the furrow might be slightly blacker. Not sure if it is my imagination or not.

Been running a paralink drill with the 2:1 opener. Not sure if the MRB are throwing more straw around or if the packer wheel is too far behind the shank and allowing more residue to flow back in. Tried seeding speeds of 3.5-5 and residue on furrow seems to be the same.

Would having the packer wheel closer to the seed tube help keep the straw out of the furrow or do the double knife machines push more residue the side than a single shank opener?

Crops usually turn out great, but in looking closely at emergence it would seem that there is room for improvement. Residue has a much bigger effect on germination than I ever imagined.

 

[nicemustang]

Likely your problem is speed. Reason why back ones are better because they are the last to go and no other openers are throwing trash over the rows. So what is your opener choice? A 12" might be better for this bit saying goes that yields might go down with wider spacing, especially in cereals. I don't think 1:1 would be better than 2:1. Banders either because they are first. So how fast you going? Biggest factor I speed. Bg 3320 with 1" openers and 5.0 is max for throwing dirt.

 

[bud]

Have 3/4" openers on 10" spacing with V packers. Travel from 4.5-5 mph. Rear shanks still have some trash over the furrow, but not as bad as other rows of shanks. Stepping does not appear to be too bad. Had slowed down to 3.5 and 4 mph and saw no noticeable difference in stepping or the amount of black soil showing in the furrow.

Wondered if perhaps 10" spacing just caused more sideways movement of straw than a 12" spacing would. Lots of top producing crops around me grown on 12" spacing. We get brainwashed by bourgault that 10" is the best, but is it???

I cut my wheat straw 12" high and have no plugging issues or piles, but maybe the longer straw throws further than short straw.

I do get massive stepping issues when seeding into pea stubble and I have found that I either have to go 3 mph or live with it. I seed about setting 8 for cereals on my 3310 and that gives me about 3/4" to 1.5" depth variation on the seed. Maybe with the V packer that causes more dirt movement. I had 4.8" pneumatic tires the first year I had the drill and the field finish was much smoother, but seed depth and packing was very poor. I have clay soil and when it is dry at seeding the narrow knife cuts a small slot and the round packer wheel would sit up on the shoulders of the dry undisturbed dirt and not pack the soil.

 

[Ben Heide]

I have 12" spacing and like it because there is more air movement in the canopy of cereals later on in the growing season. I have noticed no appreciable yield difference after 2 full seasons having come from 10". One advantage is that the dirt from the back row of openers has to throw 2" further to have impact on the other 2 rows if this is your issue. At 3.5mph though, you should have very little issue with this. I have used the Seedhawk and the JD 1870 this spring.

 

[sneeky]

I seed about setting 8 for cereals on my 3310 and that gives me about 3/4" to 1.5" depth variation on the seed. Maybe with the V packer that causes more dirt movement. I had 4.8" pneumatic tires the first year I had the drill and the field finish was much smoother, but seed depth and packing was very poor.

Does the seed depth vary in the same row or are you talking about a difference between rows across the machine?

 

[Bobbyw]

We set our back row shallower than the front on out xtc helps a bit but still more trash in those runs in heavy trash you deffitnly have to reduce speed with a 10 inch spacings

 

[BrianTee]

Get a disc opener, problem solved.

 

[gopherchoker]

Take it you are seeding between seen the rows?

 

[bud]

Does the seed depth vary in the same row or are you talking about a difference between rows across the machine?

Depth changed that much along the row. Regular hoe drills have twice that variance in my soils.

 

[bud]

Take it you are seeding between seen the rows?

Dont seed between the rows on purpose, but some fields get seeded the same direction every year as they are long and skinny.

Usually seed opposite the way it was seeded last year.

 

[bud]

We set our back row shallower than the front on out xtc helps a bit but still more trash in those runs in heavy trash you deffitnly have to reduce speed with a 10 inch spacings

How fast do you seed with the xtc?
10 or 12"?

 

[gopherchoker]

We RTK between he rows and it really works well .(may not be an option for you) The standing stubble rows keep the existing straw from moving to the row beside it. We also use a seed hawk and seedmaster on 12" so its quite a narrow disturbance path.

 

[jmac1299]

We had the same issue you are discribing and we solved it by going to 12" spacing from 10". Speed had no bearing on the problem either. We seeded at 3mph and 6 mph and saw the same troubles. When conditions were right like a burnt wheat stubble field that was dry it would do an incredible job but in heavy canola chaff it would shove over just far enough to cover the front two rows. Now this year on 12" drills it is so much better. There is almost no straw/chaff pushed past it's own row. The speed thing has more to do with dirt throw and thats why 5mph is kinda the top end of speed for getting the dirt to fall back into furrow ahead of packer wheels. That's our experience on our farm.

 

[bud]

We had the same issue you are discribing and we solved it by going to 12" spacing from 10". Speed had no bearing on the problem either. We seeded at 3mph and 6 mph and saw the same troubles. When conditions were right like a burnt wheat stubble field that was dry it would do an incredible job but in heavy canola chaff it would shove over just far enough to cover the front two rows. Now this year on 12" drills it is so much better. There is almost no straw/chaff pushed past it's own row. The speed thing has more to do with dirt throw and thats why 5mph is kinda the top end of speed for getting the dirt to fall back into furrow ahead of packer wheels. That's our experience on our farm.

Any down side to the 12" spacing that you have seen?

 

[jmac1299]

Nothing yet but it will take some getting used to the wide space in wheat at heading.