Converting planter to drill, sorta

[emetzger]

Hey guys. I'm going to share my plan here and get some advice on getting seed dropped as equally as possible down 4 fertilizer tubes made for 2 only. What I really need is a drill but in the mean time I'm going to try this and see how it works. The reason for this is I don't want to turn soil.

Last Fall I pushed my fertilizer openers as far inside the rows as I could and used it to plant a cover crop of, wheat, crimson, vetch, radish. I added two s tines to the outside of the rows thinking I could scratch the soil a little and come back and spreads some more seed. The s tine idea didn't work because of all of the residue but the fertilizer openers worked well.

Now I I'm going to add two more fertilizer openers to the outside of the rows where the s tines were and try and plant with 6 rows. The problem I'm having is getting equal seed out of the side auger hole down two tubes going to the openers. I have not set it up yet but I'm thinking about sticking two rubber tubes inside the one auger hole and filling the gap so seed dumps and falls down the two tubes. If anyone had a better thought please share. I will try and post some picks of my Frankenstein planter.

 

[swat1018]

Not sure about your build. Around here, nice 2 rows go for almost as much as bigger planters.

 

[emetzger]

Swat,
Thanks for the reply. Bought this one from S&S in KY about 5 years ago. It was expensive.

Another thing I didn't mention is that I'm going to try and plant a companion crop with my corn this year. With rolling and trying to use no herbicide I need good canopy closure. Don't know if it will work but I'm going to drill beans with the openers in between my corn rows.

maybe try cowpeas, sunflowers, buckwheat in another field with corn. I'm up for any suggestions for good conpanion crops with corn. It needs to be reasonably priced. I also contemplated watermelon or pumpkins.

 

[emetzger]

Not much interest in this thread, but I want to update my progress. If this works, I think this could be a way for a food plotter, with a JD planter, and fertilizer box to convert their 2 row planter into a drill. One could no till grains into their plots to prevent turning the soil.

I'm very interested in no till, so in order to get a better cover crop down, I need to use a drill or I need to disk the ground. Since I'm using a crop roller, the success of it depends on ones cover crop. I have top sown seed into thatch and it does work especially for smaller seed, but the bigger seeds are tougher to get germinated.

In the pictures attached, I'm finishing up on the two extra openers that I'm adding and also a field I planted with my planter. Again, I pushed the fertilizer openers in the middle of the rows. The middle rows show up well and they are a mix of vetch, wheat, crimson and radish. The outside rows on the row planter I used frost master pea. You can see a little growing on the left side of the picture.

The reason I only used peas on the row units is that I had a finger pick up for corn boxes. In order to do multi cover crop seed for these, I purchased a brush meter with milo plates. I'm hoping I can fill it up with the same mix minus the peas and plant with the row units. We'll see how it works.

 

[cutman]

I'm definitely following your project with interest. I already have a no till planter and a no till drill, but I think it's cool what you are doing. I want to add a crop roller in the future.

 

[Kabic]

So in the above picture is 4 rows? The normal two row planter and two row inside from the fertilizer?

 

[emetzger]

So in the above picture is 4 rows? The normal two row planter and two row inside from the fertilizer?

Yes it is 4 rows with the fertilizer openers, now. What I'm trying to achieve is 6 rows by adding two more fertilizer openers on the outside of the row units. I slowed the auger down to the lowest speed and it worked pretty good as you can see. The challenge will be to get seed evenly dispersed out of the side fertilizer hole, down two tubes. I haven't set it up yet but I'm planning on using two smaller rubber tubes shoved inside each fertilizer opener. I will fill any gaps with silicon to help seed flow.

 

[Kabic]

I think that should work as long as they are close as possible to the same size and position.

 

[emetzger]

Kabic, That's it!!!

 

[emetzger]

Update on planter. I have added the outside fertilizer/seed openers and am now working on the tubes. As you can see in my pictures the cover crop I planted in the fall is coming up nicely. Some fields I just drilled and others I top dressed with crimson. All rolled and drilled.

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[emetzger]

Before

After

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[emetzger]

Update on planter from other thread.

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[Triple C]

Above my pay grade but sure enjoy seeing what some of you guys can do with reformed equipment.

 

[Cedar Ridge]

Update on planter from other thread.

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Nice work!

 

[emetzger]

New update on my 7000 convert to drill. I'm in the middle of planting and have noticed a few things. One, I'm flying threw seed in my hopper. I set the auger on the slowest setting but flew threw about 7 bags of cover crop seed on about 2 acres. What I've done next is try and figure out a filler I can use to thin it out a bit. I chose lime and grain rye.

The second problem I experienced is seed clogging up the 2 holes. I changed out to bigger tubes and it worked better this morning.

It's yet to be determined how well it does but a couple things to keep in mind is I think it will work better planting into a thick cover crop than no tilling into cut and sprayed ground. The seed just sits exposed in furrows and with covers there is some protection. I will be doing the later tomorrow so I will post results.

This may work well with tilled ground and then dragging or rolling with a cultipacker to cover seed, or possible adding a chain off the coulters.

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[bigbluetruck]

Why not try using a Y the same size as the tube would be and then attaching your 2 big hoses to it instead? Keeping it all the same should keep the rates per row fairly even.

As far as trying to reduce the rate, what about figuring how much too high you are, then getting a sprocket that is equal to the difference between it and the old sprocket. Or try cutting it with something like 11-52-0 and adding Urea to come up with whatever your soil test calls for? Then add the correct number of pounds of CC seed for the acres, that way youre trying to meter the larger amount (fertilizer) instead of the CC. I used 11-52-0 and urea because they are what I'm most familiar with here.

I'm just getting into interseeding some covers into corn on our farm, looks like you had some vetch and clovers? I'm trying some Black cowpeas this year, they should use the corn as a tressel and be able to survive under the canopy

 

[emetzger]

Why not try using a Y the same size as the tube would be and then attaching your 2 big hoses to it instead? Keeping it all the same should keep the rates per row fairly even.

As far as trying to reduce the rate, what about figuring how much too high you are, then getting a sprocket that is equal to the difference between it and the old sprocket. Or try cutting it with something like 11-52-0 and adding Urea to come up with whatever your soil test calls for? Then add the correct number of pounds of CC seed for the acres, that way youre trying to meter the larger amount (fertilizer) instead of the CC. I used 11-52-0 and urea because they are what I'm most familiar with here.

I'm just getting into interseeding some covers into corn on our farm, looks like you had some vetch and clovers? I'm trying some Black cowpeas this year, they should use the corn as a tressel and be able to survive under the canopy

I considered the Y idea but thought it wouldn't disperse seed as even as the tubes. I may need to try it because it has been tuff. One or the other tube tends to drop more seed, it takes some adjusting.

That is a good idea with the fertilizer, which I'm trying with the lime. depending on what I'm planting the cheap sunflowers could be an option also. I will also look into the sprocket change, that may be the ticket. When I get it all figured out, I will probably have a drill by then, ha!

On this field I had vetch, frostmaster pea, forage radish and wheat.

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[bigbluetruck]

Couple other things to try, might try turning the Y Tube so they sit side by side instead of front to back, also maybe try extending the tube above the split and then running it to the openers, might give it enough time to even out.
Another thing would be to use individual insecticide boxes off planters, might have to hog the hole in the bottom out, depending on what your seeding and then adjust it using the rate adjuster.

That's how I'm gonna try to seed my covers, we used to use the boxes off a IH Cyclo planter to apply insecticide with the cultivators, but with GMOs we haven't used them since I was young. I had to get new paddles from CNH but they were only $12 each.

 

[emetzger]

Big blue,
That's a lot of farmer talk right there. I think I need a diagram to follow you regarding the Y placement. One problem is I have a lot of hilly terrain so the tubes seamed like a better idea. I'm definitely open though. Also, If I run insecticide boxes it would be on my rows, correct? I want it in between row units.

 

[bigbluetruck]

I'll have to make a quick engineering drawing lol

On the individual boxes, theres a couple ways to go, you can get the original style boxes for your machine, that would make the drive system easy, you should be able to run the hose over to the side, but theyd mount behind your seed boxes. I'm not familiar with the JD box, but I assume it's similar to others. There's really not much difference in the way a granular insecticide box works compared to a drill, it's just designed to meter smaller material.

Or you could mount a JD, or IH box where your fertilizer box is now and rig up some kind of drive that way. IMO the IH boxes would be a little easier to mount and drive, they just connect to each other using square tubing. Then you could just drive it off the same shaft your fertilizer box is now. We run ours with windshield wiper motors. You could run fertilizer through them too.

I'll get you some pictures when I get mine up and going, probably just make a thread for people who might want to build a drill instead of buying one, IF it all works as planned lol