We love the Cross-Slot drill for it's ability to seed into vary adverse seeding conditions, which we have, --uneven ground, uneven residue distribution, heavy, loose residue, tall tangled residue, hard ground with powder pockets, For the most part the drill gives us great emergence. We're getting better stand establishment than what we have ever been able to achieve with hoe drills and disc drills in the past, --particularly the spring seeded crops. Winter wheat was much more forgiving. With years of direct seeding, 100% surface protection, and the CrossSlot drill, soil surface sealing is not a concern. Whether we can physically seed a field is no longer a concern. If the ground will support the weight you can seed. There are a couple of issues however. One issue relates to the opener.
----We are not able to use the scraper on the opener as shown. Years ago the scraper was designed at WSU for the CrossSlot. Farming the steep slopes of the Palouse Hills causes a lot of side force on the disc blade of the opener. This force opens a gap on the up-hill side of the disc, and exerts enough force on the down-hill side of the disc, that the friction exerted on the seed by the disc grabs a percentage of the seed and moves it back toward the soil surface. This displaces the seed from the horizontal slot left by the blade to a position along the vertical slot left by the disc. When we A-B line on steep slopes, frequently, a striping effect can be seen. In a lot of scenarios this does not happen; but, when you are drilling into thin moisture, or going through heavy straw, where that straw gets pushed into the disc slot, you want all the seed in the proper location for optimum emergence. The "scraper" was designed for just that purpose, to hold the seed in the horizontal slot. We need to find a way to get those scrapers functioning as intended. Currently, they catch residue and than dirt and drag, making a mess. What has changed since the scraper was developed? I think it is our farming method/goal. Twenty years ago yields were less, and we would struggle to seed into hundreds of pounds of surface residue, and maybe a long cut would be 24"tall. Fields would be "conditioned" for seeding (harrowing, mowing). Today, CrossSlot users are dealing with much heavier, longer residues, and not "conditioning" the field to seed. In our case we are regularly seeding into several thousand pounds of residue and a long cut of 40+ inches. The most residue we have seeded into has been in excess of twenty thousand pounds of tangle winter wheat residue. The idea I have had since building this drill was to change the pull point by swinging the hitch to transfer the side draft to the tractor; however, the Auto guidance technology is not capable of compensating for this movement.
The other issue, relates to the seed metering system.
---- The AgPro/Valmar metering system is long in the tooth and needs to be upgraded. The deficiencies glare when seeding very low rates, --2-5#/a of canola as an example. On the plus, it's simple. On the negative: --in our hills, the seed delivery and volume is dependent on the systems aspect (front up or down, side tilt, shake). --being nothing more than a form of flute feed, it draws in and spits out seed in clumps depending on the air stream to spread it out. --Overrun is horrible, and when you factor that in, reduce the rate to compensate, one is left wondering what rate he has actually seeding. Singulation is probably not feasible, but I think building a bottom using the JD double run feeds will give us a close alternative.
The double run feed will require a lot of adjustment to vary seeding rates but with our Omni drive coupled with the Bourgault gear box, I don't think we will have to change any sprockets to seed 2#/a to 200#/a. Until I find differently, if the seed is metered out fairly even, I think the current air system will deliver to the ground fairly evenly.
We are fast approaching the time where we will not be able to cut seeding costs by saving back seed. All of the new wheat cultivars we are interested in are proprietary and the cost is significant. Seed overrun will be an expense to eliminate.
Pic above is showing the Bourgault transmission with it's capability of 1/1 to 60/1 ratio. The Omi drive with it's effective 30-150rpm variable capability is connected to the input shaft on the back of the Bourgault. You see the chain connecting the output shaft to the roll. A 180 position encoder is mounted on the end of the roll shaft to control seed rate through the Omni drive and Viper.
---- The AgPro/Valmar metering system is long in the tooth and needs to be upgraded. The deficiencies glare when seeding very low rates, --2-5#/a of canola as an example. On the plus, it's simple. On the negative: --in our hills, the seed delivery and volume is dependent on the systems aspect (front up or down, side tilt, shake). --being nothing more than a form of flute feed, it draws in and spits out seed in clumps depending on the air stream to spread it out. --Overrun is horrible, and when you factor that in, reduce the rate to compensate, one is left wondering what rate he has actually seeding. Singulation is probably not feasible, but I think building a bottom using the JD double run feeds will give us a close alternative. 
No comments:
Post a Comment