Will precision planting winter wheat pay for Ontario growers? That’s a question RealAgriculture agronomist Peter Johnson and OMAFRA cereals specialist Joanna Follings are determined to answer with a new research trial they planted last week at Follings’ home farm at Ayr, Ont. At the 2020 CerealSmart conference last February at Kitchener, Ont., Michigan State University… Read More
The hangover effects from a wet fall are giving farmers in parts of Western Canada a headache this spring. Saturated soil conditions right until freeze-up forced fieldwork that normally happens in fall to be delayed until spring. As a result, heavy harrows, vertical tillage machines, traditional cultivators, and even fire — all the tools in… Read More
Does building your corn planting and side-dress fertilizer program around a fertilizer cart make sense? That’s what Blenheim, Ont., farmer Joe De Brouwer does and that’s why he’s on this episode of The Sharp Edge on RealAgriculture. De Brouwer, who farms with his father and two uncles, tells Maizex Seeds’ agronomist Greg Stewart that an… Read More
If you haven’t prepped your planter for 2020, there’s still time to get the job done. On this episode of RealAgriculture’s Corn School, Kearney Planters service manager Shaun Dilliott walks us around a typical corn planter and offers tips on key areas where growers should focus maintenance efforts. The frame segment is the first stop…. Read More
During planting season, Kearney Planters service manager Shaun Dilliott gets plenty of calls from growers asking for seed meter management advice. Most of those calls come from soybean growers looking for tips on two types of meters — a John Deere radial meter or a Kinze brush meter. On this episode of RealAgriculture’s Soybean School,… Read More
Have you noticed doubles and skips in your corn fields? Poor-performing meters on planter row units are the likely culprits and they’re costing you money. With the 2020 planting season quickly approaching, we asked Kearney Planters service manager Shaun Dilliott to share some tips on meter maintenance and testing. Dilliott and his team work on… Read More
Bigger isn’t always better, as is the case with the new 1745 MaxEmerge 5 planter, says John Deere. The manufacturer rolled out the planter at the National Farm Machinery Show (NFMS) earlier this month, touting narrow transport capabilities, a split-row configuration, a fit for small fields and no-till, and compatibility with older tractors. The key… Read More
Kinze’ new high-speed planting system will allow growers to plant at speeds of up to 12 miles per hour when it hits farmer fields in 2021. Dubbed as “True Speed” by the manufacturer, the system will be available with Kinze’s new 4905 planter for corn and soybeans. Last week at the National Farm Machinery Show… Read More
The Maestro lineup has been around for a while, with two main features: weight transfer, and electrical metering drive run strictly off of the tractor. “We thought that an additional generator on the back of the planter is exposed to dust, is exposed to rain, is exposed to any natural influence, and that can, in… Read More
Väderstad’s new planter offering enables operators to fill one large 3,000 L seed hopper, rather than each row unit, increasing both productivity and capacity. “It’s our new system for pressurized seed metres,” says Väderstad’s Lars Thylen, “where we have a central fill function…for all seeds, including small seeds like canola, sugar beets, but also normal… Read More
Can twin-row soybeans flourish in a strip till world? That’s a question Maizex Seeds’ agronomist Greg Stewart explores with Woodstock, Ont., farmer Wes Hart on the latest episode of The Sharp Edge on RealAgriculture. Hart is a firm believer in the benefits of no-till corn, but he and his father, Doug, have never been satisfied… Read More
Monosem’s MultiSlide planter lineup is allowing operators to vary inter-row spacing to accommodate a wide range of crops, all from the tractor cab. The range uses a claw system on the metering units, with rails integrated into the frame to make sliding possible. Inter-row spacing can be set in 2.5 cm increments from 45 to… Read More
We’ve all heard the phrase “plant to moisture,” but we’ve also seen the moisture variability that can occur within a few paces, never mind over an entire field. Precision Planting LLC is working on a technology that will take moisture variability into account, automatically adjusting drilling depth on-the-go. The system uses SmartDepth (a prototype) in… Read More
Kinze is rolling out a new configuration of its 36-row, 20-inch planter for spring 2020. The Iowa-based manufacturer has added a string of technological advancements to its 4700 planter, which it unveiled at the recent Farm Progress Show at Decatur, Illinois. In this video, Eric Broadbent, Kinze’s North American sales director, explains that the new… Read More
Curious, enthusiastic and sceptical farmers welcomed Dot Technology Corp (Dot) to eastern Canada this week as the company rolled out an autonomous row crop planter prototype at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show. Dot has been a Western Canada phenomenon as Norbert Beaujot, founder of Saskatchewan-based SeedMaster Manufacturing and Dot Technology Corp, has quickly created a buzz… Read More
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