Planter suggestions for pumpkins and corn

[StephenM88]

Hello all,

I'm starting a pumpkin patch and corn maze here in northwest Missouri but am needing some advice on planters. I currently have a '74 Ford 2000 and am working on a '66 JD 4020. I've purchased a 10' JD KDA9 disk but am now needing to start looking for a planter. I'm planning on 3-5 acres of pumpkins/gourds of all different sizes and 2-3 acres of corn for the maze. Can you clear up for me which of these might be the best solution?

John Deere 7000 plate planter (I've found one locally for $2400 - 6r 30" with no till)
White 5100 or 6100
IH 800 / 900

Combination of: Cole MX12 or JD71 for pumpkins AND a cheap 4-6 row corn planter (JD494 / JD694 / JD1240...possibly even the white 5100).

I guess what I'm saying..if you were going to spend around $2,000 for the best possible setup to plant both pumpkins and corn, what would you choose?

As a side note, I do plan to plant indian corn, sunflowers, and sweet corn as well in smaller amounts.

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[paul]

I have almost no experience with the white machines, but I hear really good things about them, they might be really flexible for you and top of the list?

A 7000 is one of the best simple planters out there, but the plate versions are very rare here, more popular is the south I guess. The problem with the plates is you need
a different plate for every different size seed you have, with planting so many different types of corn alone I think you will spend a lot of time trying to match up plates.
It?s getting harder to find well graded seed any more, they expect we all should have a finger or air planter any more and seed size isn?t so critical then.

The 809 and especially 900are pretty good air machines from what I hear, lot better then the 400 and 600 models.

Paul

 

[Traditional Farmer]

Some of the Cole planters had double hoppers so two different type seeds can be planted in one pass.I have a 2 row unit set up to plant corn and pumpkins.Have to have left and right hand plates to go with it too.

 

[DeltaRed]

Get an 'old time' plate type planter.a unit planter would be the cat's meow. A JohnDeere 70or 71 on a 3 point tool bar.4 row. any rowwidth you desire.there are plates available for just about any crop. Even blanks that you can drill yourself.I run a JD 71,4 row on 30" rows.there used to be thousands of them out there.Used em for Pinto beans,onions,sugar beets,corn,milo,cotton,peanuts,mellons,soybeans...the list is endless.

 

[StephenM88]

Something like this? Does it seem overpriced?
https://wichita.craigslist.org/grd/d/halstead-john-deere-4-row-planter/6851302280.html

I could pick up a single row on craigslist/ebay for around 600-800 and also pick up an old plate planter like the 694an for 600, but i'm not sure if the 694 would do a good enough job planting corn at 36,000 population for a corn maze.

 

[TJV]

I have no experience with pumpkins or sunflowers but would think the finger pickup (corn unit) for a 7000 JD should plant a pumpkin seed the
problem you will have is getting the planter to turn slow enough to get the pumpkins spaced out to have room to vine out. Indian corn and
sweet corn work just fine in the finger unit. Kinze brush meters also fit the 7000 boxes and offer a lot of different plates for many
options like soybeans Milo sorghum and cotton to name a few. The Kinze book says the finger pickup (same as a JD unit) is for corn and
sunflowers. But the lowest population settings has a seed spacing of about 12 inches in my opinion is too close for pumpkins but they also
offer a larger sprocket for half rate mostly used when using a split row (15"rows) need half rate because you now have double the rows. This
could effectively give you a 24 inch spacing.

I have no experience with the IH 800/900 planters but they offer a lot of different drums for different seeds and I wood think if you got
creative you could plug some of the holes in the drum to get a bigger spacing between seeds, drums are easy to change between different
plantings and drums are plentiful so if you ruined one experimenting you can always find another.

All I know about white planters is they use some type of seed plate and there are many different plates leaving options open but again
spacing might be the issue.

I mentioned Kinze the early ones 2000 series are almost identical to a 7000 Deere and the later 3000 series are basically the same with
improvements. I think they have an easier to adjust seed rate transmission that will be more adaptable to your situation. 3000 Kinze is what
I run on our corn and soybeans and we used to have a JD 7000 20 plus years ago that's where my experience is.

Hope this gives you some help and ideas personally the IH cyclo with the drums might give you the best versatility when you do as I
mentioned and plug some holes on the drum for pumpkins. These are my opinions and thoughts without much experience hope someone else can
give real world experience

 

[rustyfarmall]

The 494 or the 1240 would be my choice. With the correct plates it will plant both corn and pumpkins. Both of those machines might be more than a Ford 2000 will comfortably handle.

 

[Leroy]

At that population I wonder if the planys would be able to make it to get big enough for that maze. At that population they might not be able to get over 3-4 foot tall. And that is above the normal planting range for any planter to plant corn. You would need a grade of corn that would be identical in size and shape of a soybean and use the soybean setting to get that high a population. And for pumpkins you would need to block off 2 out of 3 rows to get a decent spacing for planting pumpkins.

 

[DeltaRed]

yes it will plant 36,000.It will plant at about any population you need. just buy a book. It will have all the settings you need. I refer to my book every year.Get plates from 'Lincoln Ag Products',evergreen,CO.

 

[DeltaRed]

Agree with Leroy. 36,000 is a bit steep. 28 to 30,000 would be better. The lesser stand would ploduce bigger/stronger stalks.The book(s) for both 70 and 71 planters list settings for pumpkins,as well as a multitude of other crops.Other companys also made unit planters. JD is the most common,and still has almost unlimited parts and plate availavility.The JD 71 is still being made by an aftermarket manufacturer. I forget the name,but they are black and white now.

 

[DeltaRed]

Yetter Company is who now makes the #71. 800-447-5777

 

[StephenM88]

Thanks guys. I've just been going off of what my seed provider has told me. He provides seed for another corn maze south of here and he recommended 30" spacing for a population of about 36000 crossplanted. I'll visit with him more about that.

Do we feel like, value wise, that $1600 John Deere 71 suits me better than the $2000+ John Deere 7000? I'm very unfamiliar with the cyclo and white planters but trying to get those figured out as well.

 

[RGMartin]

as you know, pumpkin seed size varies wildly. The 7000 or newer finger unit is the only one I would bother with. AN air unit can be made to work, but not worth the trouble( I got an AC one to run good but had to make my own seed discs). a plate type may plant one size fine, but break other size seed, or lots of skips, when the seeds cost 10-20 cents a piece you don't want to break many.

 

[RGMartin]

The white planters with the pto air supply were good machines. The ones with electric blowers are troublesome.

 

[DeltaRed]

If what you are planting is a silage variety,then thicker is better. you want height. Grain yield is not an issue for you.If the 71 is a 4 row machine,I think I would choose that one.3 point is better for small patches.71 is more adaptable to many different crops and row widths. If you are growning vegies/produce,you don't want a planter that can only plant one or two crops. In your area,those small unit planters are in high demand by food plotters.Hence the high prices.

 

[fastfarmall]

It going to need some additional watering and fertilizer!

 

[paul]

So are you planting 18,000 one direction, and then 18,000 cross ways, for a total of 36,000?

Is your entire cropping operation aimed at fun/ tourism, or are you planting any crop for best yields as well?

Paul

 

[StephenM88]

We talked about having a total population of 36,000 per acre, so I'll assume he meant 18,000 each way like you'd mentioned. This will be completely for agritourism. I'm not worried about the ears whatsoever, just want to have tall, bushy corn that makes a good maze.

 

[StephenM88]

With the pumpkins, I'll be planting for yield but there will be around 30 varieties of pumpkins and gourds.

 

[Leroy]

Should handle with ease as long as have the swinging drawbar and remote hydrolics. My 2N Ford would have handkled the 494 easily but did not have the remote hydrolics or correct drawbar. The 2000 is half again as much power.

 

[Leroy]

Remember you cannot completely plant a seed box empty, You will always need at least 5# of seed left in each box to be sure it is picking up seed. So with a 6 row planter you would have to have 30# more seed than you will use but a 2 row planter only 10# more than you will use. 30 varieties times 30 pounds is a lot of seed to carry over. You would be best to get the unit planter and only use a part of it to plant only 2 rows at a time for that small of an acreage. 2 rows at the 30" for corn and 2 rows at 80" for the pumpkins.

 

[Leroy]

Actually what I think would be best is get 3 of the unit planters and set them at the 30" spacing or perhaps as low as 25" spacing for that and use all three units for the corn and them for the pumpkins only use the two outer units and drive wider to make a distance that you could put a extra row in but leave that space blank. A pumpkin will vine out 10+' so the plants need a lot of space to grow.

 

[Brendon-KS]

A planter such as the Deere 71 will function perfectly well with less than 1/2 pound of seed in the hopper. I would not be using one to plant my garden every year if it took 5 pounds just to keep it primed.

 

[Leroy]

Yes they will work with that amount but when you are in a quarter mile long field you do not want to stop every 200 feet and make sure there is still seed for the plate to pick up. I have done that to finnish things up and about out of seed. The plate will push the seed around to side it will not pick the seed up and you have to push it by hand back into where it will pick it up. We used the Deere plate planters for 50 years and planting over a hundred acres per year with them.

 

[TJV]

I was talking to a friend last night that just bought a 2 row JD 7000 and the guy that sold it to him included an extra finger pickup unit
with half the internal fingers cut off this will reduce the population by half and double the seed spacing he told my friend that it works
great for pumpkins.

The biggest problem hassle I see with what you are doing, with having 30 some varieties is taking the box off and emptying it when you
change variety as there is no easy way to drain out left over seed. A vacuum cleaner works well over taking it off to dump them out. I have
a Milwaukee M18 Cordless vacuum that I think would work ideal for this application.

I'm not sure I go along with what was said about needing 5 pounds of seed in each unit. We plant sweet corn with a finger unit and if you
carefully pour the seed down in the seed unit a cup full in each will plant fine and it will work until there is maybe 15 kernels left. I
have already emptied the 24 row when finished in the field and had less then 50 pounds (sometimes way less) total leftover thats only 2
pounds or less per row and that's for field conditions I think in the controlled garden type settings you would be able to get by with way
less.

 

[Leroy]

You are talking plateless that I know nothing about. I was talking plate and yes you can get down to that much but you just about have to walk with the planter and keep moving seed into plate as the plate likes to move the seed to oposide of box and not let it where it will fall in plate by itself. Getting down that low I did stop every 5 feet to work the seed to where it would fall into plate. That figure was just for planting without thinking is there still seed falling from plate or am I not planting the row without getting off and checking. You think you have enough seed in box to plant that last eighth of a mile row but then do you only get half of it planted or are you getting off tractor every little bit to see if you still have enough to keep going. I know some people would keep on planting without checking the seed boxes and keep on planting with no seed to plant. That is why I said plan to have that much so you are not planting vacant rows. That was for a safty net.

 

[StephenM88]

If I go with a John Deere 7000, would it be wise to stick to finger pickups or plates? I've found some of each planter at similar price points. I've purchased most of my seed through Harris seed and I'm sure they vary in size a bit.

 

[TJV]

In our part of the country western Minnesota I haven't ever seen a plate type 7000 I think finger pickup units are more popular and still
being built today as far as I know. Parts should be available from many sources I can't say for the plate units but I know seed plates
change with seed size the finger unit is way more adaptable to varying seed sizes.