[gruoborrac]

first of all MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone! hope you are all enjoying yourselves.
so we are considering a possible upgrade to our seeding outfit for 2015. We currently are running a t9040 NH 4wd with steinbauer chip on a 52' NH 2050 drill with a 380 bu cart. trying to plant 5200 actual seeded acres in SW Sask. Light brown soil with some pretty good hills. We are finding that it is taking us way too long to get our crop in. Last year took us roughly 3 1/2 weeks but had a fair bit of downtime due to weather. We feel the real bottleneck of our seeding is our small cart. too much time filling as we are trying to put down some heavy fert rates. we like the drill, it works well for us, however it is not cutting it anymore. we feel we have no room for expansion with this setup. so we could change to a larger cart. possibly a morris 650 bu , however not sure the t9040 would pull around all that extra weight. other option is to trade entire unit off on something larger. have found a t9060 4wd and a 80' seed master with a 820 bu tow behind cart. Leaning this way because of the sectional control. there are already a few SM's in our area and the guys like them. Do you guys think the t9060 would handle that large of a drill? we want to try and put as much fert down at seeding as we can. Not really sure about top dressing afterwards .

Any thoughts appreciated

 

[Andrew_D]

Not sure what row spacing you are on, but if you are looking at SeedMaster, their reasearch farm is/was trying to sell their drill. 100', 15" spacing, front canola tank, 820 Nova. When I last talked to Owen at Farm Forum beginning of December, they hadn't sold it yet.

Andrew

 

[directway]

I can't comment on the tractor but the drill and cart you would like. I went to a 60 foot Seed hawk with an 800 bu tank and 5000 gallon liquid tank last spring. Went from a 70 foot machine with 430 bu tank and 2600 gallon liquid tank. We really like not having to stop and fill. And we do more with the little bit smaller machine than the bigger with smaller tanks. With this machine I can seed 160 ac on a fill of Fertilizer and 300 or more of seed. And I plumbed my frtilizer 4 inch so can fill and be back seeding in 20 min or less. A real easy day gets 300 ac seeded. We seed 3000 ac and with weather delays we were done in 12 days. And we don't work long hours. My dad always says after dark is only for whores and thieves and we are neither.
We pull the unit with a stx500 quad. On our lighter flat land it pulls easy but we have some clay Hills and pulling 120000lb of seed and Fertilizer up them made it work. Got a Steinbauer chip this harvest which should make it better. Sure helped pulling the joker this fall.

 

[bud]

Have you considered pulling nh3 with current drill? Cheap and easy sectional control and can do way more acres per fill.

 

[cnh007]

Not sure what row spacing you are on, but if you are looking at SeedMaster, their reasearch farm is/was trying to sell their drill. 100', 15" spacing, front canola tank, 820 Nova. When I last talked to Owen at Farm Forum beginning of December, they hadn't sold it yet.

Andrew

I would never want a unit like that, basically a boat anchor, there is a reason it hasn't sold yet

 

[Ben Heide]

My dad always says after dark is only for whores and thieves and we are neither.

I like being done or close to done a field by dark, opening up a new piece at night can be trouble. You only get one chance to plant the crop right. The past couple springs has had too much double ended candle burning IMO

 

[SWFarmService]

Id be a little nervous about 15" spacing (I think they told me over 75' was) but sweet outfit, once you get crop #2 off with it you will be really happy, must get the smart hitch, dont seed without it. I think the nova cart is probably the most advanced cart you can buy right now and anyone can argue with me it is the maintenance free seeding tool you can buy. After owning one I have never once felt like a lab rat like we always did befor. Norbert has done a good job

 

[Andrew_D]

I would never want a unit like that, basically a boat anchor, there is a reason it hasn't sold yet

Yeah, not for my farm either. Just thought I'd mention it since the OP had brought up SM.

Andrew

 

[gruoborrac]

thanks for the replies . not sure if even the 80' unit would be too large for us, almost an extra 30' over what we currently run. but there are other units of smaller sizes for sale. mostly was interested in the 820 cart. As for pulling nh3 behind, hadn't really considered it, would have to see where the closest station is located. i'm not sure I've seen one in our area , but there must be. As far as working after dark , we do run late, however some of our ground is pretty wet in spring so if we are in those fields we usually run daylight hours.

 

[skgrain]

You do realize you are looking to jump about 3 sizes right? So if you got it done before with that drill(although a bit late) you will be frantically looking for more land. Which might work out well.

 

[gruoborrac]

ya , we realize its quite a jump in size , but we feel we are to our limit with our current setup and this move would give us at least a possibility of entertaining the idea of renting land if it came up at least.

 

[nddurumman]

You could always buy another setup like you have. Strait out deals are real attractive right now.