more notill drill questions

[jimgoddard]

A while back I asked for starter info about notill drills and at least one of the replies mentioned one could be 'made' from a conventional drill and coulter caddy. So, I went off and looked into that but I still have questions. Frankly theres not a bunch of info about this.

First, Id like to understand what makes a notill drill notill. My understanding is its a side by side series of coulters ahead of the openers ahead of seed/fertilizer drops ahead of press wheels. The leading coulters are there to aid the openers which create the 'furrow' at the correct depth for the seeds & fertilzer. The press wheels pack the furrow made by the openers for good seed/soil contact. This differs from a conventional till drill in that the leading coulters are replaced by conventional tillage. From what Ive seen also some conventional drills are missing the press wheels. (Dont understand that though.) Do I understand this correctly??

Back to the 'make' a notill drill business..if I were to go this route Id need a coulter caddy, enough coulters for each seed drop point on a conventional drill and conventional drill w/ press wheels or some other bit to pack the soil. Is that correct? From what little I could find about coulter caddys it looks like they dont come in small sizes (nothing less than 15'). Has anyone made their own caddy? It looks pretty straight forward but you know how that goes. Ideally Id like to use a 10' drill. I think 15' would barely fit thru my gates.

In looking at drills they can be had w/ all sorts of spacing. Is this something that can be adjusted w/ the addition of a new tube from the box along w/ the associated openers etc? The way I see it the bar underneath the box is just a toolbar that can accommodate some fixed number of seed dropping points. Is that correct? Ill be planting grass/legumes and would like a close spacing.

I noticed in notill drills the leading coulters are usually (always?) wavy. Im guessing that this is to aggressively break the soil for the openers. Can other than wavy be used? In other words what determines the type of coulter?

Guess thats it for now. Sorry to be so long winded and ask such simple questions but as I said before I dont know much about drills....but I am trying to learn!!

 

[Anonymous-0]

I think you would be better off to buy a no-till drill than to try and build one. If you had to buy new coulters they are going to run you at least a couple hundred bucks a piece which is going to end up costing what a drill would. We bought a pretty decent 15' Tye series V no-till drill last spring for $5,000 but in this part of Iowa no-till drills are everywhere and there isn't alot of market for them anymore. I know Great Plains sold no-till drills that were 12' wide and maybe even 10' so width shouldn't be a problem.

 

[jimgoddard]

Thanx Cliff
I was planning to buy the coulters used if I could. Not sure if that changes things $$wise or even if I could find them (which I think I could).

Wished I could get a NT drill from your area to mine w/o large expense. NT drills are quite the item here I guess b/c of this summers over the edge drought. I looked at a Tye this summer which needed work. It was priced around 6K and got snapped right up. The coop drills were rented thru the end of Oct in early Sept. Anyway, I think having my own would be better than not. Just trying to figure out how I might do that in a cost effective way. Thats why I was interested in investigating the build your own suggestion. If it works then good if not Ill keep looking at alternatives.

 

[TWJanak]

The biggest thing with a no-till drill is the double disk openers as compared to a single disk drill used in tilled areas.

 

[PreciseFarms]

Simply put, what makes a drill no-till is its ability to accurately and effectively place seed with no prior seedbed preparation. So any drill that you find that will do that is what you need. Personally the Deere 750 would be my choice because of the adjustments it offers with regard to depth, population, and down pressure. After that Great Plains. 10' 750s are hard to find but 7' and 10' GPs are plentiful. Also some are having good luck with Aer-way aerators equipped with drop seeders and the larger double drum type aerators with drop seeders. These would also have another purpose besides seeding.

 

[David in MD]

I"ve used a variety of notill drills and they each have their pluses an minuses. First was a Tye with a leading notill coulter followed by double disk seed openers and a press wheel. It"s main problem was the linkage holding the depth/press wheel would jam and hold the opener out of the ground. The Tye also had chincy plastic seed meters. Next was Vermeer/Haybuster which is an excellent drill for notill and forages. It uses offset double disk openers with a very heavy disk slightly ahead of a trailing lighter disk. There are no coulters. They come with 2 seed boxes and you can add a small seed box so you can plant 3 different crops at once at different rates. Depth/ closing was done by metal closing wheels. The vermeer is excellent in notill and pasture or hay renovation but is a little to aggresive to do a really good job in conventional till. I"m currently using IH 5400 mulch till drill. It"s basically a heavy conventional drill handing on a coulter caddy. The mulch till version of the 5400 has offset disk openers. It does a decent job in both no-till and conventional. In the spring I unhook the drill and attach a field cultivator for my version of a 1 pass tillage tool. John Deere also makes an excellent notill drill, as do Great Plains and Sunflower. I think with any drill spacing will be restricted by the number and spacing of the seed meter. I suppose you could cut additional holes in the seed box and add additional meters. As far as coulters go the wavier the more agressive tillage they do. I use 13 wave for decent tillage as I"m often planting in wet soils and want to open them up for some drying. For less tillage use bubble or 25 wave. I"ve got GP turbo till blades on my corn planter and can"t say enough good about how they cut straw and penetrate when planting double crop beans. Only drawback is they are expensive. The turbo till blades would probably work well in pasture or hay ground as well. My final recommendation is look around and buy the notill drill that suits your needs. It"s very expensive to build one a part at a time.

 

[jimgoddard]

Thanx very much for the informative posts. Guess Ill keep looking around to see what turns up. I live in a NT drill black hole and what little used equip that hits the market is usually used up/abused and priced like the Holy Grail.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Rather than press wheels, many conventional drills use chains behind each opener which "drags" the loose dirt over the seed. Seems to work OK, we did it for many years with an older Oliver drill. Small pressure wheels were optional, but personally I've never seen them on pre-1970 drills anywhere in the Mid West, but I'm sure someone bought one. When we were using the Oliver and later a JD, I thought a press wheel drill would be much better, and when I started farming that is what was bought. In my opinion it does a better job. In the past you had a choice of a 7 or 6 inch spacing and the Great Plains states did use the 6 inch spacing, but I never seen one in the Mid West. I understand that Great Britain still uses a narrrow spacing, 5 or 6 inches. If you want to sow grass seed, perhaps you should be looking at a notill grass seed drill. I think Brillion makes one which will seed into sod, but I don't know if it has a close spacing.
Great Plains notill drills have the drill attached at a pivot point which enables the drill openers to more closely follow the coulter cart slots when drilling on on a curvature; ie, "not going straight". If you are using a conventional drill with a pin hitch and a coulter cart you will get similar results. My drill is 3 point mounted to the coulter cart and the openers don't follow quite as well. I solved it by using two coulters per row so that a wider space is tilled. I use two on all the rows (20 ft drill) but probably could have been OK with double coulters on the outside 5 ft on each side. I use 12 or 13 wave coulters. I had 8 wave coulters but you needed to pull them faster than I wanted to drive to till satisfactorily.
The JD notill drill uses a single disk opener, which many say works good. I didn't like the results if the soil was a little damp. The slot would reopen when the ground dried and exposed the seed. Perhaps some kind of spade wheel opener would help this problem.
If you want a ten foot coulter cart and resale value isn't an issue, buy a 20 ft and cut the bar in half. Purchase the attaching brackets and then have a double bar coulter cart and put as many coulters on it as desired. You can choose from plain, bubble, scalloped, 8 wave, 12-13 wave, or 25 wave. Great Plains makes a great coulter, but as someone already stated, it is expensive. It's late and no time to check, so sorry if the spelling is poor or the thoughts are fragmented

 

[kyhayman]

You've gotten some really good info on drills and function here. All I can add is I have used the Tye and Haybuster drills. My preference is strongly for the Haybuster. I've planted everything from wheat and soybeans conentional till, to no till forage crops. Our local Farm Bureau owns a 10' they rent as does most of the local conservation districts.

The real key with it is seed placement. Notil drills, particulalry these can get a lot of small seeds too deep. Locking restrictor collars on the lift cylinder will keep it from dropping too deep. Thats a lot easier than on a Tye where you have to manually adjust each coulter to depth.

Where are you located that they are at such a premium? Demand is pretty high here, but usually a 2 week wait is about it. Used, typically I see them selling in the 1500-3000 range, but they are well used. At a 7 dollar per acre rental I cant hardly afford to buy one.