|
| We replaced a mechanical drive JD 1770 planter for a electric drive JD 1775 planter 5 years ago. My son does the planting and he has written prescriptions for seeding rates for each farm for both corn and soybeans. Our ground varies a LOT and it's not unheard of to go from 23k on our hills to 38K on our low ground. Field seeding rates will average about 34-35k/acre. We have about 10 years of yield maps and soils maps for each field that he uses them to write the scripts. A lot of our fields are odd shaped and we have row sense that will turn each row (16) on and off. Our old planter was 1/2 (8 rows) disconnect at a time. I physically had to turn off and turn back on the correct side of the planter (which didn't always happen correctly). With the new planter, as long as you drive the same speed while approaching and turning on the end, you can raise and lower the planter without stopping and it will turn on and off the seed so we have a bout a 4-5" gap before we get to the end rows. With the auto steer and the row sense, there are no easy to see guess rows for the combine operator to find the right rows when starting a field. We actually " goof up" some guess rows where we are going to need to find the fight rows for harvesting. (our field line fences/boundries are surprisingly crooked). I've noticed on the combine yield monitor in corn on the double planted corn end rows, it was about 1/2 the yield and double the seed cost where we double planted.
One unexpected handy feature of the electric drive planter with the prescriptions for each field is it will give a average seed/acre and a total seeds/farm needed. It's pretty easy to figure out the number of bags of seed needed to finish the farm. Usually each farm is within a bag or two.
Will all this new technology pay for it's self? It's hard to say. If you have a lot of acres, yes. I do know we are doing a lot better job farming, our yield have gone up steadily over the years, most of that is probably seed genetics, but we are also doing a much more precise job farming also. We try several new rates, products and methods on a very limited basis each year and we know exactly where the test strips are and the results. | |
|
Mechanical / hydraulic/ electric drive planters
