A test for seed drills ....

[Guest]

Most guys with new Bourgault Paralinks have the worst patchy germination in our area. Older equipment inc. air seeders looking best.

some of the paralinks are having a challenge here as well .
contour looks good but rough
seed Hawks always look excellent but really , really rough

[farmaholic]

Neighbor's canola seeded with a MF36 discer.

[farming101]

He must have made a few modifications?

[farmaholic]

Yup, GPS and a smart hitch and GPS controlling the pivoting wheels to keep the discer from dog trailing up steep hills and passing the tractor coming down the other side since its hard to keep straight because of shallow seeding. And slow speed seeding sprockets.

[farming101]

Can't fault it.

[seldomseen]

It is just hard to judge any drill with all the different soil types and all the different techniques that farmers use before they seed.
Seed hawks look good but you have to harrow the crap out of your straw for them to work good.
3320 look just a bit behind but they will handle the straw better. Both of them units cost lot to buy and have a lot of moving parts.
C shanks like my 5710 seem to do as good as the above drills but if your ground is more uneven then the paralinks might have an edge.

Some springs the ground is mellow and all drills do ok but then there are springs where the soil works up like sugar cubes and then the best packing will always win. When the ground is chunky you can have two 5710's one with narrow steel packers and one with wide rubber and the emergence will be way different.

Some of the best emergence around here was a JD C shank but the guy would run a Salford and then a harrow packer before he would seed. That way he lots of dry mellow dirt to pack on top his seeds and the seed rows don't dry down.

[Hamloc]

I use a flexi 5000. Well built drill. Last year I used atomjet side band openers on 10 inch spacing. I was hoping to improve packing by changing to single row from paired row Dutch low draft. I do think this helped with canola but I was concerned about seed fertilizer separation and didn't really like the fert and seed on the same level. I considered going back to a Dutch universal opener with the 3/4 inch extended nose but I felt there was still some fert seed mixing. Ended up getting a custom atomjet side band high rate opener made with a slight modification to the wing so that with fert going down the center the fert was about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch deeper than the seed as well as better seed fert separation due to the way this opener is made. Overall I didn't see that much of an improvement on the canola but the wheat came up a bit better. Soil was warmer this year so not sure I can credit the new opener. I did notice that the amount of trash in each field made a greater difference to even germination than anything else. I also noticed with the dry spring fields that were not heavy harrowed in the fall had a measurable improvement in soil moisture over those that were harrowed but the extra trash negated the moisture advantage. Every spring is a new learning experience lol.

[furrowtickler]

It's all Bourgault, Way out here !

Thousands of acres sown !

Millions of bushels produced !

Thats all you gotta go by !

Lol , seed scatters
They all work well , they all have there place

[Guest]

Lots of compaction problems here especially in barley , bourgault is the worst with the juice tank behind . Wont be millions of bushels of barley produced behind them out here ! Anyone know what the weight of those 3320’s are ? Compaction is killer in these soils. They must pull hard , tractor sure packs with tracks or triples? There are 20 foot yellow strips all through the fields . Anyone else seeing that ?

[tubs]

I have 3320 with 550 card and liquid tank don't see that problem . crops look good on very uneven land . Does anyone of you pull a disk drill of any make thinking I want less disturbance w are general fairly dry