SEEDING WITH CROSS-SLOT - SPRING 2015

[8/23/15 UPDATE]:  Earlier I had a question brought up to me about seeding depth for peas.  3-4 inches seemed a bit deep to the reader.  We seeded spring standup peas this spring.  Earlier we talked to a breeder I have known for years, making inquiry about several issues, including preferred seeding depth.  His response was --no less than 2 inches and 3 would be better in the case of either fall, dormant, or spring seeding.  Most of his customer base is now direct seeding and more than 3" depth is hard to achieve.   Deep seeded peas handle the freezing-thawing cycles better than peas seeded around 1-1.5".  The ground temperature needs to be 45 degrees or they will set there unsprouted.  Once they break germ they can set for a long time in the cold before emerging.  Late seeded (dormant seeding) winter peas tend to survive winter well --just time seeding to get them to break germ before complete freeze up.
[Update 7/26/15] --  Recent conversation with Kye indicates that not all of the openers exhibit the scraper problem.  This was determined by taking off those scrapers as they plugged and running the remainder.  Are there differences in openers that plug, and those that don't plug?  We don't have a lot of runtime using this hypothesis, but it's something we will pursue.  
      An interesting note:  Dr. Keith Saxton mentioned to me that this is the very condition, (seed on the surface, and uneven plant population), they experienced 20 years ago that led to the development of the scraper.
[Update 6/14/15] -- Recent field inspections are showing a problem with our drill.  Because of our ground-residue conditions we have not been able to use the scrapers that are part of the CrosSlot design --the openers plug and drag frequently leaving voids and piles.  We noticed this spring that the fields were showing striping.  It turns out that when the seed tube is on the downhill side of the disc, it encounters a lot of pressure as the disc resists downhill movement of the drill. This pressure is enough that a percentage of the seed, not being held in place by a scrapper is being dragged to the surface by the rotating disc, resulting in a thinned stand.  If it were not for doing a lot of A-B line drilling this situation may not be noticeable.  To a certain extent, I believe this condition exists with all seed types, but crops with rough or irregular shaped seed are more noticeable.  Potential solutions are --1) figure how to use the/a scrapper that will hold the seed in place, 2) use the swinging hitch to remove this side pressure by changing the position of draft on the drill. 

    This has been a very good spring.  I don't think we have ever had this quality of stand for spring crops in my career.  Spring wheat (DNS), spring barley, Billy Beans, spring peas all have excellent stands.  The Billy Beans may be a little thin, do to seed quality.  We didn't take the low germination into account.  Adding back 15% would have made the stand thicker.  We give the CrossSlot with it's ADF system the credit with it's ability to place seed properly in a complex seed bed, --whether it is hard, soft, overladen with heavy residue, or bare ground.  It senses and automatically adjusts the down pressure on the openers to match the conditions under the drill, keeping the seed at the proper depth, --hence, giving us the stand we have today.  This is the second year that we have seeded with our own machine and our confidence is going through the roof.  What a relief, after all the years of attempts to seed spring crops, with varying success, ---always with the concern as to whether we could seed through the residue.

     We have seeded several fields with various cover crop mixes this spring.  Some mixes included large and small seed together, and mixes where seed was divided and mixed as small and large seed.  This allowed planting the seed close to their preferred depth.  We have that capability with a split seed box, and duel drives (one for the front rank and one for the rear rank of openers).  We hope to find out whether we get a better cover crop stand when each cultivar is seeded at it's proper depth.

      Below are pics showing an emerged stand of peas and billy beans in less than ideal seed bed conditions.

Standup spring peas in winter wheat stubble -- good residue cover most places.

Billy beans in very heavy mat of winter wheat residue. 

    There is a lot of variation in amounts of residue on the soil surface.  We strive for enough residue where we don't see dirt.  It's a goal we have reached on approximately half of our acres.  This will be a bigger challenge as low residue crops take up a larger part of our crop rotation.  I'm hoping that we can introduce cover crops to assist in building residue, ---HOW????  
    We are finding that success in direct seeding (including crop yields) improves as surface residue accumulates.

    This tangle of long straw smashed down over a combine chaff row is probably the most challenging condition for any drill.  A spongy mat that resists penetration.  The CrossSlot does a remarkable job in these conditions.  Fortunately, there is always moisture at the soil surface, so some shallowing of the seed due to the depth of mat still leaves seed in good moist soil.  We have learned to seed small grains at 1.5", or more.  We have successfully brought up spring wheat in areas with as much as 20,000+ #/ac of residue. [see Update for Posting: May17/14]