Conversion of JD 655 to no-till drill

[northhope]

Does anybody have any experience of converting an older air-seeder to no-till drill? What kind of openers, packers did you use? Did the machine have enough clearance? Was it difficult to level in the seeding position? Thanks for any replies.

[nejar]

I have until recently worked for an a- retail location near Standard Ab. We have successfully converted 2, 655 air seeders using Dutch 'wart' knife and 2' shank mount packer wheels. the system requires that you use liquid fertilizer. scince then Atom jet has developed a knife that uses dry fetilizer for the same application.

[bblackwell]

We have seeded witha 655 for years. A few years ago I added shanks for 9" spacing, I also changed the auger and catwalk so that it works easier. We have had gang mounted packers on the back for awhile, but since going to 9" space I direct seed everything with flexicoil stealth knives. If I have to seed into summerfallow I have made brackets to mount a Honeybee driven rod onto the stealth boots, but it only penetrates into tilled soil. I also mounted Phonex rotary harrows onto the back behind the packers to smooth the surface. Anyone who has seeded with knives only knows how rough it leaves the field, but the harrows leave it as smooth as a harrow packer drawbar, and if the soil is loose it will pull the odd weed out. I like our setup, it makes it seeding a one pass system depending on how much fertilizer you need, but the small tank is kind of a pain in the ass.
Brad