Reworking an old single row planter

[PineSapJunky]

I know all of us at some point while plotting and trying to grow big deer always get a bit jealous of the ones that have all of the cool toys to put seed in the ground. Being a working father of 3 and my wife not understanding deer hunting I'm finds for habitat equipment is sparse. I came across this old planter on the backside of a pasture while doing some work for a widow lady. She told me if I could dig it out I could have it. It was in surprisingly good shape. A little grease and soaking the drive chain in diesel loosened things up. I found a couple plates for corn and beans along with flat seeds. This thing was made from a larger unit and cut down. They made it for watermelons. Row width on watermelons are too wide for most deer plantings. I finally got tired of the wide spacing and the competing grasses.

I decided I would make it an offset planter and pull behind the right wheel. Having a bunch of metal around I went to fabricating a new 3 point hitch to attach my planter to. I can't thank my dad enough for buying me a welder for my 14th birthday almost 25 years ago. I patched the fiberglass seed box and made a lid for it. Stripped it down and painted it. Now if it will just dry out enough to run the disk through some plots again I plan on planting some iron clay peas for a late summer early season draw.

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[Doe Shooter]

Great fab work. I never knew such a thing existed. I'm jealous!

 

[PineSapJunky]

Great fab work. I never knew such a thing existed. I'm jealous!

I got the idea from the old Farmall tractors that had the planter up front. They could space their rows as close as they could get their tire to it. I want close rows for corn, beans and peas. 1. To be able to plant more per acre. 2. The closer the rows are together the more they'll shade out any competing grasses. I know I could just broadcast real heavy but with a planter you use less and get better germination. My next goal over the winter is to covert it to a no-till planter. I've got a friend who has a farm equipment grave yard I think I should be able to salvage the parts needed to make it no-till and add a fertilizer hopper.

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[j-bird]

I got the idea from the old Farmall tractors that had the planter up front. They could space their rows as close as they could get their tire to it. I want close rows for corn, beans and peas. 1. To be able to plant more per acre. 2. The closer the rows are together the more they'll shade out any competing grasses. I know I could just broadcast real heavy but with a planter you use less and get better germination. My next goal over the winter is to covert it to a no-till planter. I've got a friend who has a farm equipment grave yard I think I should be able to salvage the parts needed to make it no-till and add a fertilizer hopper.

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Watch your spacing for 2 reasons. #1 - corn hates competition and you can plant too high a population and actually hurt your grain production...and be back to wasting seed, time and money. #2 - row spacing needs ot be considered if you are going to be spraying post germination. The tire spacing of your tractor influences is as you don't want to be running over crops you planted any more than needed.

This is far more a concern with corn as soybeans are far more forgiving.

I run a 2 row ford 309 planter set on 30" centers. I split the rows for soybeans to be roughly 15" centers.

Your work and clean up of that planter looks great by the way!

 

[bigbluetruck]

Depending on how narrow you want to get, as long as you compensate youll be fine. The narrower you get the more youll have to drop the population in each row. In some areas narrow rows like 18-20-22" rows are fairly popular for corn, mostly up north, it has to do with keeping the tire spacing the same as for sugar beets and there is some to do with collecting as much sunlight as possible.

I'm not 100% but its either an IH or maybe an Allis Chalmers unit, in case you need some parts.

30" is the "standard" of ag, but for us, 36" works very well to fit our 500 Artic Cat down the rows.

 

[PineSapJunky]

Got a spot planted the other day right before the rain came in. Took two days. Didn't have the disks on the back aggressive enough to cover the seed the first night. Didn't account for the tire packing the dirt that much. The second day after I adjust the disks went much better. I'd say the rows are roughly 13-15" a part. I'm not worried about post emergent spraying or harvesting. I know we like to see pretty rows of green but deer don't care. Just good for them. We shall see what happens. Thank you for all of the advice.

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[PineSapJunky]

Just finished planting 15 rows 180 yards long. Getting her dialed in.

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[PineSapJunky]

Went out this evening with the two youngest to check a camera and fill a protein feeder. Had to cross the powerline I planted on the 16th. Impressed with the growth so far

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