Farmers are always thinking of ways to be more efficient: why make two or three passes through the field if you only need one? Degelman developed its Pro-Till to work land that had to be brought into shape, but farmers started asking if they could do more with this piece of equipment, explains Laird McLeod,… Read more »
Category: Seeders and Planters
Clean Seed enters planter business with acquisition of Harvest International
Clean Seed Capital Group — the Canadian company behind the CX-6 Smart Seeder — has announced a deal to acquire U.S. planter equipment manufacturer Harvest International. The company also debuted the first Clean Seed Smart Planter at Ag in Motion on Tuesday, built with Harvest International technology. “Following the granting of Clean Seed patents in… Read more »
SeedMaster testing single rank drill prototype
After working on the concept for several years, Saskatchewan-based seeding equipment manufacturer SeedMaster has built its first prototype drill with a single rank design. While other air seeder frames have multiple rows or ranks of openers for seeding to create space for crop residue flow and the opener units themselves, the Ultra SR has everything… Read more »
Morris debuts Quantum drill with new frame design and 76% fewer parts
Saskatchewan-based farm equipment manufacturer Morris Industries rolled out a brand new air drill design at Canada’s Farm Progress Show at Regina last month. The Quantum air drill features a stronger, simpler frame design, a new air system, and more row spacing options than previous models, according to the company. “We’ve thought about this product from the perspective… Read more »
Soybean School: How Pre-till vs No-Till stack up for optimal plant stand counts
On the first day of summer how many soybean plants per acre are required to maintain 100 percent yield potential? The answer is simple – 150,000 plants per acre. But there are many management factors to consider when trying to hit that number. In this episode of the RealAgriculture Soybean School, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food… Read more »
Väderstad rolls out 24-row small seed, high-speed planter
With growing interest in using planter technology to improve seed placement in canola, Väderstad has introduced a new 24-row high-speed planter designed specifically for small-seed crops. The Tempo L 24 made its debut at Canada’s Farm Progress Show at Regina, Saskatchewan, last week. “This is the first time we’ve had 24 row units on this style… Read more »
Canola School: How much seed is enough and how much is too much?
Seeding rates are always a hot topic, and for good reason. The only thing more expensive than buying and planting too much canola seed is not having enough seed in the ground and losing yield potential. Canola Council of Canada agronomist Ian Epp is often asked, “Can I lower my seeding rate?” as farmers are… Read more »
Soybean School: Scout to evaluate your stand and when to go rolling
What’s your strategy when scouting a newly emerged soybean field? When Agromart Group agronomist Steph Kowalski walks into a soybean field this time of year, the first thing she looks to assess is final emergence and population. “It’s important to know how well we got that seed into the ground,” Kowalski tells RealAgriculture’s Bernard Tobin… Read more »
Deere files planter patent lawsuit against Precision Planting and AGCO
Deere & Co says it has filed legal action against Precision Planting and AGCO, alleging the companies have infringed on 12 patents related to the technology in John Deere’s ExactEmerge planters. The company says its lawsuit states that products made or sold by Precision Planting, including vSet seed meters and SpeedTube products, violate Deere patents…. Read more »
Wheat School: Planting wheat with a planter
It’s an established fact that seeding depth and plant spacing are critical factors in maximizing yields and uniformity in some crops. That’s why corn and soybeans are planted with planters designed to singulate each seed and place it at a precise depth. Wheat isn’t generally seeded with a planter, but as part of this Wheat… Read more »
Soil sensor designed for real-time changes to seeding rates and depths
German farm equipment company Köckerling, together with Austria-based Geoprospectors, have paired their technology to build seeding equipment designed to automatically account for variable soil conditions. The Geoprospectors’ Top Soil Mapper, which is mounted on the front of a tractor (and profiled here), scans the soil and measures three main parameters from above ground: soil moisture,… Read more »
TechTour: Using camera technology to automate uniform seedbed preparation
It can be difficult, if not borderline impossible, to create a uniform seedbed out of a highly variably field. But Austrian equipment manufacturer Pöttinger is offering a new tool, with a camera-supported seedbed preparation system. Cameras mounted between a power harrow and the seeding equipment take real-time footage of the surface of the soil, measuring… Read more »
Salford goes onboard with planter-mounted fertilizer applicator
Salford is giving growers the ability to apply either in-row, pop-up, or banded granular starter fertilizer with the ease and maneuverability that comes with a planter-mounted fertilizer applicator. The company’s new Ferti-GO 4S features a single product hopper, available for mounting on many planter models, with variable rate metering and four-section control. “With this metering system, the Ferti-GO 4S… Read more »
White Planters unveils two new tracked options
More acres in a day, less compaction, and more no-till options are what planter customers want, says AGCO Corporation, and so the company has unveiled two new White Planters options to meet these needs. The two new planter models —White Planters WP9924VE planter with tracks and WP9222VE wing-fold planter — were introduced at the 2018… Read more »
TechTour: Corn planting with small, swarming robots
Fendt sees a future where 12 small robots the size of drink coolers will replace a tractor and eight-row planter for planting corn. After completing the MARS (Mobile Agricultural Robot Swarms) project with Ulm University of Applied Sciences and funding from the European Union, Fendt and parent company AGCO have decided to take the research… Read more »