Grain drill

[Drycreek]

I'm looking at a JD 8000 grain drill, a pull type, and have some questions for you farmers. Would this be something that I could plant wheat/rye/peas with in established food plots ? For instance, going from IC peas (which would be vines by the time the deer finished with them), to a grain in the fall. Or, going from wheat/rye to IC peas in the spring. I'm trying to get away from discing so much if I can. Hogs prevent throw-and-mow, but they wouldn't bother the seed if they were drilled into the ground. One seed box, no fertilizer box, single row discs I assume. If I decided to crimp the grain, will this drill through it ? If I would have to prep a seedbed, then I'll just keep on broadcasting as it works well. I'm a babe in the woods when it comes to drills. What say you ?

 

[cutman]

That is not a no till drill. You will have to disk first and prepare the seed bed for that drill to work properly.

 

[Drycreek]

That is not a no till drill. You will have to disk first and prepare the seed bed for that drill to work properly.

That's what I was thinking. Thanks !

 

[Doe Shooter]

I believe it can be called a seed drill,but not a no-till drill. Prepped ground for the most part. It is possible to make it an acceptable no till-- money, time skill and a welder.

 

[Drycreek]

I believe it can be called a seed drill,but not a no-till drill. Prepped ground for the most part. It is possible to make it an acceptable no till-- money, time skill and a welder.

Yeah, might as well do what I've always done, disc, broadcast, drag, done....

 

[bigbluetruck]

Ill go out on a limb and say depending on what your expectations, it could work. I don't think that itll work so well after crimping with a lot of cover on the ground, but if its fairly bare or if you drilled then crimped it might work better. Its not a true not till drill but it should end up somewhere between a full disking/drilling and just a throw and mow. You might have to put the down pressure on the row units up to the maximum.

Basically just meters the seed and throws a little dirt on them. A set of drag chains would help, you can get them from Shoup.com, I think they run about $7 each X your number of rows.

You can give it a try and then if you don't like it, always sell it again for what you paid for it. I sold the other half of the one I built for $1500 and people were beating down my door to get it.

 

[Turkish]

Dgallow used a conventional drill in the manner you describe.

 

[KSbowhunter]

I've planted wheat notill into standing beans with an international drill much like that one. They were an insurance claim years ago and the beans didn't yield well from a drought so just left them standing and planted wheat right through. Wheat came up great and combined it the next year. If the ground is hard as concrete or there is alot of trash than it probably won't work but your going to get better seed to soil contact than just broadcasting and letting the rain work it in.

 

[Mennoniteman]

If your soil type is light and not rocky, and you crimp roll the former crop in the same direction that you are planting, that drill will work just fine for small grains, which are planted shallower than soybeans. Mounting a drum on the front and filling with water to increase the weight would make it work in even more adverse conditions. A notill drill has two things that that drill doesn't, a lot more weight for down pressure, which you can add, and cutting wheels in front of each planting disc to cut sod and crosswise fodder, which you wouldn't have.

 

[dogghr]

Dgallow used a conventional drill in the manner you describe.

He very well did and gave great description on old forum of its use, maybe some on this forum early on. His soil is def different than mine and I'm sure would be a consideration for use. I eventually plan to go the route Drycreek is thinking when I can have the time to purchase and manipulate the equipment. Advantage is low cost, light weight.
Bigbluetruck showed a good thread of his conversion of such also.
In all fairness, D used cattle to help manipulate the growth before and after planting with their trampling affect. I once was at his place passing thru and saw how he used that drill to make a Mecca for deer from seed mix planting, tsi, pasture, native grass, and cattle all mixed together on less than prime soils. He posts here no more as he now has grandpups and is managing cattle full time but if one searches, I'm sure some of his info on grain tills is on here. Dang the old QDMyouknowwhat forum powers that allowed all that info from many disappear. I haven't said that for a while have I? I'll go back to my corner.

 

[Drycreek]

Thanks for all the replies, but for the cost in time and money, I don't want to gamble on that working for me. Besides that, it would be hard for me to transport among the three different properties that I plot on. I just need to find a no-till three point drill that I can get at a reasonable price. I know that will work.

 

[catscratch]

DGallow posts on the Facebooks now. He is on the "reGenerative Grazing" group page. He does use a drill to seed pasture like others have described above.