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Walnut Grove MN USA | I do it in wheat and soybeans. I have a 15 foot JD 750 drill and a 90' sprayer pulled by a Cat 45 set at 120" tread. The drill has a Air Tram setup from Amity Technologies. The Air Tram is 4 seperate Y shaped tubes that have a flipper paddle inside run by an electric motor and controlled by a box in the cab that keeps track of when to activate the flippers. When drilling a normal pass seed goes to all rows in the normal way. When making tram lines the controller activates the flippers to divert seed to the rows on each side of the blanked off rows thereby doubling the seeding rate in those rows. This compensates for the empty rows with no yield loss penalty. I have seen a 1-2 bushel yield drop in a field of wheat when cutting the pass with sprayer tracks versus the pass without. In a field with tram lines there was no difference between the tram line pass versus the pass without. A couple of things must be in place for this system to work. The sprayer and drill must match up such as a 30' drill and a 90' sprayer. A 30 foot drill and 80 foot sprayer boom don't work unless the sprayer is narrowed to 60 foot. Also match up the tractor and sprayer wheels so they track together, mine are all at 120". In my case I have two rows on each side of the drill with the Y's in them to leave a 22 1/2 inch space for the sprayer wheels and they are activated every 6th pass. I have to make a half width pass around the field when I start a field to get my tram lines in the right spot for the sprayer around the outside but after that busniess as usual. A couple of big advantages is no need for foamers or light bars on the sprayer, pick out the tram lines and go, day or night. Also after the first trip with the sprayer is made the tracks are compacted and all subsequent trips can be made in very wet ground conditions, hell I have driven right thru a foot of water a few times as long as I stay on the tracks, get off and bad things happen. I had a wire get loose on the drill this spring and get cut so my tramline quit working for about 30 acres before I found it. Boy did I miss that when it can time to spray, felt like a lost puppy without my tram lines. | |
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Tram Lines in Wheat
