jd 7000 planter

[jon brown]

Im confused I thought all were no til then Im told not so how do you tell the difference? thanks
 

[andy r]

John Deere 7000 planters are an excellent no-till planter. If no-till coulters are on the planter it is a disk like blade in front of the double disk seed openers. Deere 7000's came out with two types of no-till coulters. 1st kind was bolted to the main frame. These are called "mintill" no-till coulters. They typically are a little cheaper to buy both as an attachment to add to the planter and the planter equipped with them. They do work fine. I no-tilled corn into bean ground with them for years. At many farm sales you can buy these frame mounted units for $25 to $50 a row. The 2nd kind of no-till coulters are attached directly to the individual planting units. These are probably the preferred type of no-till coulter. They float with the planting unit up and down giving better depth control. They cost more. You can generally buy each row for around $100 - $150 per row used. I highly recommend that the planter have the heavy duty down pressure springs installed if you have the row units and truely want them to cut in hard ground. Otherwise they can tend to lift the planting unit out of the ground. I have a planter with the row units and regular down pressure springs and you have to watch it that it is planting deep enough if the ground is hard. With the heavy duty down pressure springs it will penetrate much better. The heavy duty down pressure springs will cost $50 - $75 a row used if you can find them. Now, if you are no-tilling corn into bean ground the double disk opener on the Deere 7000 will do that without no-till coulters. The bean ground is much softer and generally the planting units work just fine. There is a growing trend by producers to take the no-till coulters off when planting corn directly into soybean ground. I have not ran my coulters for two years in soybean ground and do have better stands. This is especially true when the ground might be a little wetter and the no-till coulter might throw some soil. I fully intend not to run no-till coulters when planting corn in unworked soybean ground again this coming spring.
 

[ejr-IA.]

You need sharp and full diameter double disk openers or you will get what they call hair pining which means pushing uncut residue into the seed furrow not good.Also I have seen where this can pop the kernel of corn out of the ground.