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| I am not sure I will ever see my electric drives on my 6 row planter pay for themselves from a seed savings or yield improvement standpoint. Or if I do, it will be a long time from now! But they have been trouble free and they just work. I found a used set of Graham drives for my planter and have been using them for the last 8 years or so. We are mostly square fields with a couple point rows along ditches in a few fields, but nothing too terrible. The biggest thing I have noticed is the increase in productivity with not having to stop on the ends to turn around. Also, if I am working during the day and want to plant some at night, I don’t have to worry about stopping and/or lifting at the correct time, the row shutoffs do it for me. I probably could have ran a hydraulic drive with the tractor I am using as it is just a finger pick-up planter, however I knew I have enough alternator to run the 6 rows on the tractor so that’s the way I went. I believe I was told I could do 12 rows without a problem powering it just through my tractor. Most of this could have been accomplished just with row clutches, but the Graham drives were reasonable and I like the ability to change the population with the flip of a switch and someday (soon) I plan on trying some prescriptions. The electric drives took my 1750 John Deere planter from 2000ish and made it into something that seems a lot more modern with very little modifications needed. I could have the chain drive back on it in a couple hours if I needed to. | |
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Mechanical / hydraulic/ electric drive planters
