Some DS Drills

This was our original DS drill bought in 1992.  The poly tanks are an upgrade from the original.  AgPro of Lewistion built the drill.  Originally this single pass drill was set up on 9" rows with a narrow hoe opener with down pressure supplied to the parallel linkage by a hydraulic accumulator  This basic style is still current production.  The winter of 2013-2014 the tanks were used on our new CrossSlot drill.  The remaining drill was sold.

This is another drill style used in the area.  It's a farm shop built, ≈51' wide, hoe type opener, capable of two types of fertilizer.  A large seed hopper with air delivery to the openers.  This large machine is challenging to move on the public roads.

This drill was one of the first successful no-till drills made.  It's a "Yielder".  They came in a variety of widths 12' to 20' in several spacing configurations, and use very massive double disc openers that incorporate deep banding of fertilizer as well.  This is still a great drill to start Direct Seeding with.  It is not finicky about residue condition, although it is prone to hairpin. Do to it's opener weight, soft ground can prove challenging.  Parts are starting to be difficult to acquire.

This is a 2014 JD model 1890 (?), 50' (?) drill behind a 600hp Quad.   The openers are heavy single disc on 7.5"(?) spacing.  It places starter but no deep band fertilizer.  This is part of a two pass system where an Exactrix fertilizer unit precedes seeding.

This is our new 2014 farm shop built CrossSlot type single pass drill.  28 openers on 10" spacing.  This drill needs a minimum of 500hp, 50k weight to pull it without issues.  See post of 5/3/14 "NEW CROSS-SLOT DRILL for more detail.

Another larger CrossSlot single pass drill built by AgPro of Lewiston, ID.  36 openers on 10" row spacing.  Two types of liquid fertilizer are placed near the seed.

This is a "true" CrossSlot single pass drill, built, boxed and shipped from New Zealand to Montana.  This unit is 28 openers on 12" (?) spacing.  This unit is set up for dry fertilizer.  The mainframe, low tool bar design of this drill are the basis for the two US built copies shown above.

Another type of single pass drill.  It is 50+ ft wide.  It is a hoe type drill.  Row spacing is 12"(?).  This is farm shop built.  Large capacity seed and fertilizer containers.  The starter is carried on the tractor. This drill is unique in that it has a swinging hitch that automatically moves side to side depending on the slope of the hill it is traversing to keep the unit pulling straight.  Challenging to move on public roads.

Another manufacture of a single pass DS drill.  This is a hoe drill on 12" row spacing.

 This unit was built by AgPro and then modified.

This unit uses a Flexicoil frame and hoe opener.  

bare patches

 

This is a dramatic visual example of what is happening to our hills under a "conventional cultivation system" of crop production.  Over the 100+ years that this field has been plowed, disc'd, cultivated, weeded, and harrowed, with some of these operations being done repeatedly in any one crop year, the thin mantel of top soil has been removed from the area shown, leaving these bare patches in the winter wheat crop.  The following website gives information on soil and it's value to crop production. <ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/a0443e/a0443e01.pdf>.   Without the [O and A horizon] crop production is limited.  The "O" horizon is the surface crop residue.  The "A"horizon is  the mineralized organic layer below the "O" horizon.  These two layers, O and A, make up the spongy layer of the soil that is biologically active, and resists the erosive action of rain droplets, and the scouring energy of the wind.  The deeper the layer, the higher the nutrient production capability and water holding capacity.  The "A" horizon is the "engine" that is the future for crop production in a Direct Seed System.  It has the potential to be manipulated, to make and redistribute nutrients for crop production. With todays technology, this erosion process(pic above) can be stopped and the soils rebuilt; however, the rebuilding is a very slow process.  NRCS considers a loss of 10,000 pounds per acre as sustainable.  That is a little less than 3mm depth of soil.  The field above, as an example, receives a number of rain and wind events over the course of a year along with several tillage operations.  It's anyones guess as too the amount of soil that has moved off the surface of this field, but my guess is that it is in excess of 20mm over the course of the two years that it took to raise this crop.  To add insult to injury, that exposed  poor soil ["B"horizon] is eroding down and overlaying the better producing ["A"] soils.   Those soils then, tend to produce at a lower production level.  So, over time, the bare patches enlarge and field yield average shrinks.  These areas will become more prevalent and larger until all tillage stops and residue is considered an asset instead of a liability on the hilltops and hillsides.