Bourgault Drills

[farmaholic]

Anyone using a 3310 or 3320 with/without MRBs? What has been your experience with these drills? In wet conditions, because of their weight, can you keep them on top of the ground? Will they penetrate hard packed areas(by approaches) in a field. Anyone using a wider opener than just a knife with these drills? How have the new series MRBs been standing up. How about compaction with the carts? If you don't have one, does a neighbor and what has their experience been? Any info would be appreciated, good and bad.

[pgluca]

Have a bourgault 3310 that I have just put the 3rd season on. The concerns you mentioned are legitimate. These parallel link drills that use hydraulic down pressure work well in fields with uniform moisture and soil density, BUT when your hills are hard and dry and your low spots wet, the hydraulic pressure that you have set for average conditions can hardly hold the shank in hard spots and you will get little or no packing, and at the bottom of the hill in the soft ground it will pack like crazy. Bourgault is also very heavy as you mentioned. It will go through most anything that is in condition to seed as far as moisture is concerned, BUT if you are really wet and have to get through the wet areas to get to the dry one's you are screwed. Last year we put duals on our Flexicoil cart and that seeder is lighter and has walking beams on front so we had to put it in the wet fields.
The 3310 of course has an extreme number of moving parts and plumbing, and no thermal protection what so ever, you will have to install it yourself or put up with the damage and repairs. I addresssed that with Bourgault but all they did was give me new parts the first year. Apparently not enough claims to make it worth while. At the time I bought Bourgault was way behind on the control and monitor area and my cab is FULL of harnesses and boxes. The Bourgault cart has some good features but also some poor ones. It is very long like rail car and you have to put you tractor in the ditch turning in to approaches if you are tow between.
There are a lot more issues that I have run into but I don't want to write a book. The other significant one was the seed distribution. Even with the lines rerouted and the air set so low you could actually see the seed moving through the tubes we still had seed everywhere. After numerous complaints I found out that there was available and stainless steel deflector to install in the boot to direct the seed into the trench. They claim they have few complaints so you have to buy that extra and put it in yourself if you want proper seed placement.

To close my feeling is that for your dollar and durability buy a much simpler 5810 with mid row banders if
you want them and pair it with a Flexicoil/New Holland/ CaseIH cart. There are quite a few areound here that way and I doubt you will ever make enough dollar difference with the 3310 to justify one..................how ever I know where you can get one in good shape!!

[ab3]

Went from 5710 to 3320 xtc. Drill pulled easier
and seed placement was very good. It takes
about 10 minutes to change depth with 2
people.5710 is a lot fewer moving parts. Both
drills will seed hard ground well . Paralink way
better in mud because there are no gang packers
to push mud.

[pgluca]

Sorry forgot about the mid row banders. They are the first ones I have used and I was quite happy with their performance. We go fairly slowly 4.6 to 4.8 and have had no durabilty issues although we have an average amount of rock. Just grease and adjust the sc****rs. Back to the down pressure you can adjust it on the go and somewhat mitigate the packing a penetration issues, such as adjusting it on the headlands where you have been turning so you get good penetration. One other requirement for a 3310 is high flow hydraulics, unless you buy a small one, have level land and don't mind slowing way down to turn.

Good Luck with your decision.

[bgmb]

We bought a new 5810 just finished our second
season with it. We are happy with the drill overall.
Have had a few issues with rock shaft bolts
breaking and defective hydraulic cylinders but
nothing to stop us for more than an hour. We
spent quite a bit of time with our asses in the air
leveling it and our crops are coming up as good or
in some cases better than the independent
opener machines, we are running a spread
opener and not seeing any seed on top. Have
Mrb 3s on it they seem to work better than the
previous models of mrbs in my opinion. I agree
the cab clutter with bourgault monitors is insane
but one thing about them is all you actually need
to seed is your main clutch switch.

[fjlip]

Have a 14 year old SS 5710, 4th year for us,zero issues. We use a 3' spread carbide opener with the 5.5" packers and have no problems in wet conditions.
A sc****r is necessary, so we made a set.
The size a weight of a 3310 is just scary for me. The cost is a no brainer.
MRB's seem to be losing favor in this we area.
More tillage is happening.

[bgmb]

Just a note I know 2 guys that have gone 5710 to
3310 and back to 5810. Not saying 5810 is the
answer in every situation but just what I have
observed.

[highwayman]

Have had 4 different 5710 drills over the past 14 years with MRBs. All very good drills. Have now finished 3rd season with 75 foot 3310 and after roughly 30000 acres on this machine it has performed very well. Have learned that we can seed a lot shallower and still get very good germ in our soils. Only change the depth once a season, canola depth and then everything else. The new QDA might be nice if you change depth frequently or the XTC if you have very rolly or hilly land. MRBs have worked well but keep them well greased. Closer tines on MRBs can sometimes be a problem in certain straw types.V-style semi-pneumatic packer wheels work the best in all conditions IMO. 6700 tank could use more rubber under it for wet soils. 3310 has huge advantage in wet soil over the 5710/5810 with the abiltiy to adjust packing pressure. Would like to see bourgault incorporate all functions into one monitor. Did hear reports of some owners having trouble with seed treatment buildup in metering augers this season depending one what product was being used.

[SASKFARMER3]

Forsale one 3310 and one seedmaster
Since purchased it hasnt stopped
raining! please take off my hands.






They work nice adding the mud kit to
seedmaster has helped Bourgalt build
like a brick S&%t house! Will last a lot
longer.

[farmaholic]

Thanks for the responses. People buy lottery tickets hoping to win the amount of money we spend on machinery, kinda makes me wonder!!! Feel free to comment some more, I found the posts to this thread helpful and informative.

[RidgeRunner]

I have noticed guys moving from 3310's back to 5810's and wondered why? If you take the cost and hydrolic demand out of the equation, thought it's the way to go.

I went from an 8810 to a larger 5710 II with dry MRB's, and have had good and bad luck with it. Works great in drier loam soil/light land, but if it's wet at all, or if you have clay, conditions have to be on the drier side for proper emergence. It's my first year with it but learned alot. Wheat was seeded into drier canola/flax stubble, and worked great. Flax seeded into w.wht/wht stubble that was wetter, not happy with emergence in the heavy land. Found plants seeded at 1 inch that are like corkscrews trying to come thought the clay cap. By the time we got to the canola we seen this problem, and waited on conditions to improve, and went super shallow, shallower than I was comfortable with, but it rained, which worked great.

Contouring in the hills sucks compared to our old 8810, making me wonder which way to go, 3310 or back to an 8910. With the rain we get/been getting around here, the 8810's with packers look great this year, they're about half the packing pressure of a 5710.

Rode with a neighbor that has a seedmaster/6350 BG tank, and I was impressed with it, other than the huge furrows left.(rough) He never checks his depth, set at 3/4 inch and just goes. Always has perfect emergence.

Love the tank, I have the 6350 as well, liked the MRB's other than when you turn with them in the ground, but watching the seedmaster, things are bending and twisting like crazy as well if truning when in the ground.

Need a tractor with big hydro capacity for a independant, especially if running two fans. For me that was a challenge even with our drill at the headlands.

Think the 3310 would ge great for the fact that you can adjust your packing on the go, and would contour so well. But they're heavy and expensive.

Good luck with your decision.

Inch and two tenths here, seeding done, behind on spraying. Crops coming nice. Central MB.

[tman]

For the ones who have the MRB's, how many acres do you go before the discs are changed?

I've found out, I think, that is the cause of the problem that I've been having with my boss's 42' 5710. These are the basic MRB's with the spring in front of the 3.5" square tubing that has two bolts holding it to the machine.

I figure that they've delayed seeding by 1 to 2 days with all the plugging issues in the cereal and pea stubble. Except when things got really dry with wind and sun, those MRB's would just push the straw and dirt. The MRB's in the middle of the machine are the worst headache this spring. Even when they were lifted up for seeding peas they would plug with straw because there's too little room between them and the next shank. Really frustrating when you only do 10 to 15 acres an hour when you could be doing up to 25.

These discs have 18,000 acres on them now and I think that's about 5 to 8000 too many.

I would like to convince my boss to switch openers and get rid of them but again, the discs are worn so they might be better when new. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt since some of you have had positive results.

But I sure as h*ll don't want to go through this crap next spring. Without the MRB's this 5710, like 8800 can go through a forest.

[furrowtickler]

Agree with the no mid rows for sure. Neighbor bought a used 5710, no mid rows with liquid side band. Way better than his old 5710 with MRB's for trash clearence and pulls much easier to boot. Much better than the old one, but still has to wait for conditions to dry up a while longer than our 8810. Our 8810 goes through almost anything and can seed in very wet conditions with no prob. Don't know much about the paralinks.

[bgmb]

I think one thing worth noting is that the 57/5810
is a totally different animal depending on what
packer you get, my recommendation would be to
go with a 4 in semi pneumatic or the 5.5in
pneumatic depending on if you are 10 or 12 in
spacing I think with either of those packers they
perform more like an 8810. Steel with sc****rs is
another animal all together.

Also if you are comparing a 8810 with no banders
to a 5710 with banders it is appales to oranges in
terms of contouring because you have castor
wheel extensions on the Mrb machine. But I still
agree the 8810 is slightly better contouring
overall. But we have run side by side in very wet
conditions and the 5810 would go through as
much mud as the 8810.

[farmaholic]

Furrow: Did your neighbor have the "shank" style MRBs or the coulter style. I heard the shank style are rakes. I thought the shank style would be the way to go maintenance wise but heard they are terrible for clearing trash.