[bfl2008]

From what I was told there will be a few out this coming year to continue testing and it won't be available on mass till 2020 at least. Supposedly they seed on 15" on the Seedmaster farm all the time with cereals, not sure how they compare for yields versus others in the area with independent openers but on 10 or 12" spacing. Anyone know?

 

[bfl2008]

Thought I’d throw you guys an update from our side by side trials in northern Alberta from last season.

15” UltraSR vs 10” bourgault and 12” hawk in barley we saw no yield difference. Same in wheat. Canola was better by 3 bushels per acre.
Having said this.....these results are in an area that isn’t super dry. I can see that further south where canopy close up early is needed due to low moisture conditions most of the time this probably isn’t the answer. I sold one to a fellow in Innisfail Alberta last august which is central area. He’s moving from 10” to this. We did fall rye with it and it looked perfect going into winter. We will see what the results are come this fall and what the customer experienced on his other crop yields compared to his last drill on 10” would produce.

If you are wanting to confirm the 15" spacing is not a drag on yield you need to compare to a seedmaster 10" and 12" spacing with same rates of fertilizer. Then you should have an independent drill that can seed at 7-8" spacing that has a comparable opener to the seedmaster. This should also be done for 3-5 years. This will be the only way to truly put the issue to bed. We have been looking at the SR but the wide spacing on cereals of all peer reviewed third party testing shows decreases as spacing increases. Can't ignore those till you prove it right, not anecdotal of how a farmer thinks the 15" yielded compared to the last 10" drill. Useless information, things every year are so variable.

 

[bfl2008]

Thought I’d throw you guys an update from our side by side trials in northern Alberta from last season.

15” UltraSR vs 10” bourgault and 12” hawk in barley we saw no yield difference. Same in wheat. Canola was better by 3 bushels per acre.
Having said this.....these results are in an area that isn’t super dry. I can see that further south where canopy close up early is needed due to low moisture conditions most of the time this probably isn’t the answer. I sold one to a fellow in Innisfail Alberta last august which is central area. He’s moving from 10” to this. We did fall rye with it and it looked perfect going into winter. We will see what the results are come this fall and what the customer experienced on his other crop yields compared to his last drill on 10” would produce.

Is there any chance of a paired row opener that can be used on this SR drill? Like the Dutch conversion kit? This would help immensely in my opinion with the spacing issue. Love the idea of a SR, so easy to check, fix, etc. No more crawling under a drill would be seeding heaven!

 

[bfl2008]

I saw this drill at AgDays this weekend. Very interesting. Do you guys think canola seeding rates could be as low as a planter with these drills?

We have one and we used to use a planter, I would say you have slightly more mortality than a planter.
Maybe 90% germ with planter and 80-90% with this drill.
We increased our seeds planted per sqft from 5 with the planter, to 6 with the drill to account for this slight loss.

 

[bfl2008]

Still think your leaving some yield on the table with cereals, need to get down to 10” for cereals especially in the northern prairies.

Plan to do some trials this year in barley for sure but also wheat hopefully to see the difference.
Barley will be 15" vs 7.5" (double seed to get the 7.5" spacing, slowly)
Wheat will be 15" vs 10" (will compare to our N543F Deere disk drill)
I have heard up to 10% lower yield but want to confirm on our farm what is the difference