JD 4250 drill input?

[ChampagneNBeer]

Hi All,

Looking to break out the JD grain drill I have for the first time.

It was my dad's and is in excellent shape, has the fert box, grain box and seed box.

I believe it is the single disc (from memory, but can double-check).

I have the manual but have never used a grain drill before.

Any tips/tricks on usage, metering, setup etc?

It is a large drill (14ft wide) and can see how using for larger acreage is ideal, but anyone have ideas of if/how can be used for much smaller plots - 1/2 acre to 10 acres?

My thought was to block off sections of the fill box to make space smaller so less seed is needed, but aside from that, am at a loss.

Thanks,

CnB

 

[Brendon-KS]

Is it an 8250 drill that you have? I'm not aware of a Deere 4250 drill.

If it is an 8250 you could have either fluted-feed or double-run meters. The fluted-feed is simpler to adjust for seeding rate and is probably more popular but isn't quite as versatile as the double-run. Whichever style you have make sure to set all feeds the same, keeping in mind that there are separate drives for each half of the drill plus adjustments on each individual meter. Your manual is invaluable for setting the drill for the desired rate for your crop.

When you first start out keep an eye on the feed tubes which are in front and visible from the tractor. Spider webs, mud dauber nests, etc can plug the tubes and result in seed spilling out the top.

If you block off part of the drill you will need to remove or block up the un-used feeds to keep them from digging up the previously sowed areas. Sowing small areas isn't a big problem (I've sowed plots less than an acre with my 20x8 8350) but it does take a certain amount of seed to prime the system. When working with the minimum amount of seed having a helper to ride on the drill and make sure each feed has seed is helpful. It depends too on what you're sowing. If you're doing something like alfalfa a larger drill on a small plot would be very impractical since you are only seeding a few pounds per acre. With grain or soybeans where you're putting down 60+ pounds per acre it isn't so much of an issue. Of course, if you have multiple small plots of the same crop it isn't a problem at all since you can pull the drill down the road when filled.

 

[Tx Jim]

(quoted from post at 14:09:45 06/06/21) Hi All,


I have the manual but have never used a grain drill before.

Any tips/tricks on usage, metering, setup etc?

It is a large drill (14ft wide) and can see how using for larger acreage is ideal, but anyone have ideas of if/how can be used for much smaller plots - 1/2 acre to 10 acres?

My thought was to block off sections of the fill box to make space smaller so less seed is needed, but aside from that, am at a loss.

Thanks,

CnB

To drill smaller tracts of land just put that amount of seed in the box that you desire to plant. There's no need to block any feed openings unless you desire the plant rows to be a greater distance apart.

 

[SVcummins]

The small plots Is the reason I pull one 8 foot unit drill . On five or ten acres you might only have 150 pound of seed well thats a pain in the butt because youll only have 4 or 5 inches of seed across the width of a 14 foot drill so you spend Most of the time trying to keep seed in the feed cups . You could make a partition in your drill to make it had as wide as it is or less then just use half of it

 

[Timmycornpicker]

The Rutgers Experiment Station I worked at 20 years ago had a rig made up for a JD 8300 they were using as a plot drill that had a vertical length of PVC pipe above each feedcup. Each pipe was filled and all the seed went through the cup. There was a wood base that ran the length of the box that had holes in the right places and from what I can recall the pipes were simply glued to the board.