Canola seed size for planting?

[blackpowder]

Furrow. What make/style of planter are you using or what would you rather use?
Our future plan has a planter in it hopefully. Your pictures speak for themselves. Thanks.

[goalieguy847]

Darnit, had a big long post but she didnt get thru the snow i guess into the interweb...

We bought a planter last yr norht of Edmonton half hour. Took me a week to figure out how to unfold it ( not joking, but was due to a rats nest and dead squished rat that was blocking a ram...gross.. absolutely gross)

Ran the planter sidex with our conservapac which we consider to be fantastic at germinating canola.
Plant counts 1nce a week..full proper trial.
Planter at 220 k seeds/ac resulted in seeding rate of 2.35 lbs/ acre.
Conservapac ( 1870) was 4.8 lbs/ ac. Yield was identical of 31.5 BPA. ( not great but had less than 1 inch of moisture after june 10th so.. pretty good actually!)


Planter plants/sq meter were high 40s low 50s. ( avgd 51)
Drill was significantly higher at 65 to 70. ( but understandably as 12 inch spacing vs 15 with planter)
Mortality ( death rate) thru planter was 4 percent.
1870 was 26.

We wasted 1.5 lbs/ ac of canola before the seed even came out of the ground.
Thats where the planter wins..every acre we save 33$ in JUST canola seed.

Plus the agronomics and economics of it are a huge win.

40ft planter with 1000 gallon liquid tank needs all of 250 hp to pull around and even with full hydraulic drive metering and 3 section control it still needs peanuts for hydraulics ( 30 gpm tops)
Plus you can run 2 rigs and seed twice as much in a day ( yeah yeah i know manpower...etc..). With diesel going up..def thru thr roof...how much HP does a 76 foot drill require ( not to mention hydraulic flow) .
The main reason we bought a planter is because we were too cheap to go find 78 gpm flow in a tractor!


The guys with planters arent ruining it for everyone else.. i actually believe they are showing us the way. Every farm should have a seedmaster with canola pro metering or a planter on their farm within 5 yrs.
( weve used our for all of 120 acres last yr and 30 more in a bayer trial) and i am already a huge huge huge believer. We have lots of pics and vids if anyone is interested ( which i know we all are). Feel free to message me for any more info.

I Know alot of people like to pick holes in things they dont believe in ( the usual comments i get are incredibly obnoxious like ive hurt someones mother) but my rebuttle is always this.

Every single seed company..

Every single one.

Uses a planter in their trials.
Why?

[furrowtickler]

Furrow. What make/style of planter are you using or what would you rather use?
Our future plan has a planter in it hopefully. Your pictures speak for themselves. Thanks.

We have a Horsch Maestro, 15/30 . Can be used on 15 in or 30 in for corn .
Has all electric drive seed motors so you can actually run on different speeds at the same time .
The individual shut off per seed row is nice
Very well built
I wish it had a small saddle canola tank like bourgault has. Then one could use the main tanks for dry fertilizer or replace them with liquid tanks like the 800 gal one already on board .
Not to familiar with other brands . I am sure they all have decent features nowadays .
We like the Horsch because of the quality build and precision with canola up too 10 mph if conditions are very good and seed size is 5.5 or higher . We usually run 7-7.5 mph.
Can really go quick when planting corn .
Planted canola , soybeans , black beans and peas with it so far . Very accurate and consistent.

[furrowtickler]

Individual seed row shut off .

[blackpowder]

Okay, now I'm drooling.
I worry about 15" row spacing in dry country though. Any way or reason to tighten that up?

[furrowtickler]

Okay, now I'm drooling.
I worry about 15" row spacing in dry country though. Any way or reason to tighten that up?

I would say no worries . In the past 5 years we have been very dry in 3 of those and don’t see any downside there . In fact I would see it as a benefit as long as your weed control is adequate and timely .

[beaverdam]

Individual seed row shut off .

Wow furrow,,, seeing that seed single row shutoff, that's beautiful !

Is it that neat at 7.5mph? or would you have slowed down some, to get it that accurate?

[furrowtickler]

One concern we still have is the “low plant population” and frosts . But after a few years and several frosts , especially last year , as long as you can keep it clean after it will make a crop .
Last year we had some froze 4-5 times , thinned it out but it still made it . Mind you we increased the seeding rate on the first seeded canola to 240,000 seeds per ac. Soil was drying out fast and we were about a week earlier than normal.
Have seeded as low as 140,000 but in ideal conditions. Would not recommend that low
200,000 seems to be a good bench mark at 5-6 tkw .
That gives a seed every 2 to 2.5 in

[furrowtickler]

Wow furrow,,, seeing that seed single row shutoff, that's beautiful !

Is it that neat at 7.5mph? or would you have slowed down some, to get it that accurate?

When it works is that accurate up to 10 mph
We had a little trouble a few years ago but it was computer / gps related .
Again the smaller the seed size the less exact it will be . At 6 tkw it’s nearly bang on as long as your GPS and monitor are synced good

[blackpowder]

Think I'll print these pages off.
Fertilizing and weed control critical for sure.

[Sodbuster]

Lots of good information here, thank you for sharing Furrowtickler. Eventually our farm will see a planter, I can see the economics of a planter and the advantages, for now we will keep plowing ahead with our Seedhawks and will let the next generation decide what’s best for the farm. I will soon be fading out of the picture in the next few years and will become the unpaid help until it gets to expensive for them to have me running machinery and ask me to stay home.

[goalieguy847]

Think I'll print these pages off.
Fertilizing and weed control critical for sure.

We found that weed control wasnt really any worse than 12 inch spacing ( but we generally spend the money and spray everything twice incrop)
Fungiciding decision is alot easier decision to make with the crop being alot more even. 30% bloom is generally across 90% of the field. Fert is definitely a different plan but it was something we were doing anyway ( nh3 in fall or float ureA/sulph in spring ahead of planting).
Plus the cost of fall nh3 vs spring is " usually" worth it...