Scraper Issue with the CrossSlot Drill

         The consumables on a CrossSlot opener include a scraper for each side of the disc.  The purpose of this scraper is to prevent seed from catching on the disc and being drawn back to the surface.  We have not been able to use the scraper because of it's tendency to catch residue and foul the opener.  We have a lot of surface residue, and we farm across slopes of ≤ 40% which exacerbates the problem.
         We have always used the cast chrome blades because they are significantly cheaper than the blades with carbide inserts.
         The fix:  --  Using Blades with Carbide Inserts. 
        Because of our past experience with one cast chrome blade with carbide inserts, we put new blades with carbide inserts on all the openers at the beginning of 2018 season.  We also put all the scrapers back on the seed side of the openers.
        The spring planting is done, -- SUCCESS!   We had less operating down time, with better seed placement using these new blades.  This spring the seeding condition was grueling.   We seeded into all combinations of wet to too wet soils and varying amounts of surface residue.  Kye avoided, where possible, seeding through standing water.  Did we eliminate all plugging of openers? --NO!, --but there was never any consideration of removing the scrapers.  The pace of work picked up compared to the past.   Our seed placement and emergence shows improvement to the point we need to consider dropping seeding rates.  
        This is an expensive opener to maintain compared to our hoe drills in the past, but it's versatility, and ability to seed/emerge a crop in any residue and field condition, is outstanding.  If one figures all the costs that goes into field preparation to emerge a successful stand, the CrossSlot is the least expensive, and the lowest disturbance no-till drill commercially available today.

<---This pic shows the CS opener with the notched disc, the spring plate, the left blade with the carbide inserts, and the scraper.  This blade has run one season showing little to no wear.  By looking closely you can see a short black object hanging down in front of the blade.  There is a hole just below the spring plate that allows material (residue) to enter the void designed for the seed.  This material has the potential of stopping the seed drop.  Several years ago a local custom operator (Jon Olson) spotted the problem and developed a plastic shield to cover that opening.  It works great and we are using the shield.

<---This pic shows two sets of cast chrome blades (w/o carbide inserts) positioned bottom to bottom.  On the left is a new pair, and on the right is a used pair.  The leading edge for both pair is on your left.  Notice the wear on the bottom leading edge of the used blade.  We have found that this wear gradually gets to the point where dirt is allowed to enter the void designed for the seed drop.  It's easy to see this condition when you remove the blade.  There will be a plug of dirt that falls out, or is molded to the blade.  The void designed  in the blade is open on the back (trailing) edge, so the condition won't necessarily stop seed flow, --you will however, have poor seed positioning, leaving the seed near or on the soil surface.

<--- This pic shows the cast chrome blade with two carbide inserts.  One on the lower portion of the leading edge (to your right) and one on the front portion of the leading edge on the bottom wing.  The bottom insert stops the wear on the short wing preventing dirt from entering the void designed for the seed drop.
       Notice the geometry is different from the cast chrome blade without the inserts.  We don't fully understand what is happening here, but, between the geometry difference, and the carbide protected wear surfaces along the leading edge and the bottom wing area, we are now able to seed and use the scrapers as intended.
       One blade with carbide inserts has run on this drill since 2014 and is the only blade that ran the whole time with the scraper.  We have been told that we will have grooving and excessive disc wear using the carbide.  We have not seen that yet.  We have replaced all the disc's due to wear that thinned the blade which caused cracking and breakage from the stress of weight, and hillside operation.

2017 HARVEST UPDATE

The 2017 crop year was a record breaker.  Never in my lifetime have we received 20.4" of rain/snow in a crop year at our SJ/Ewan operation.  Also, we have had near record or record breaking temperatures for the 2017 crop year.  That sounds like it should be a banner year with plenty of moisture and heat.  Well, not for us.  Timing of the rain and heat trumped everything.  The harvest of 2017 was mostly disappointing.
WINTER WHEAT:   (Brundage 96)  All of our winter wheat was seeded on pea ground (no ww on fallow ground).  The ground was dry, which meant we didn't consider seeding until after Oct. 1st, --a bad decision this year.  October was extremely wet all month.  Lesson learned?! --Seed in September regardless of dryness, and seed it deep (1.5-2") so it takes a significant rain to start it.  Had we done that, the Thornton winter wheat crop would have probably been 100-110% of average, and the less forgiving SJ/Ewan area winter wheat crop would have been in the range of 90-100% of average.  As it was, Thornton was ~90% of average, and SJ/Ewan was ~50% of average.
SPRING WHEAT (DNS):  (Glee)  The season started out with great soil moisture, and timely seeding, that developed into a very nice looking stand of spring wheat.  The unusual heat wave (~ three weeks ± 100 degrees) damaged the bloom and seed development.  Our quality was remarkably good, --the meshes were just blanked out.  Test weight was good and shriveled kernels were few, and protein was just under 14%.  Our yield was ~ 90% of average.

[Update 6/28/18] --Meetings held during the winter and spring on Canola have emphasized the importance of proper timing for chemical applications.  There will be a yield loss to the crop if chemical is applied after bolting commences.  We didn't get to the in-crop application until bolting started showing, along with some flowering, --this is probably why we were ~200#/a below a neighbors yield although we had a better stand and population.  The neighbors field was a couple of hundred feet higher, and that may have been a factor as well in terms of heat effect.
SPRING CANOLA:  (hyCLASS 930 rr) The crop was timely seeded.  The plant population was good.  The crop was growing well, but the heat hit in early bloom (for 2016 trials, we had nearly a month of bloom).  The high heat over the extended time did not let a re-bloom establish pods.  In fact the spring canola continued to bloom through the beginning of 2018, although no pods set.  The yield was ~ 30-40% of what we expected.  Any other field would have probably done better this particular year.  This field was our poorest soil, lowest elevation and all faced S and SW.  It took the brunt of the heat.  We are not deterred.  We think that spring canola is going to be a great alternative to winter wheat.  Also, it appears that we will be able to cut spring canola with the stripper header which is a big plus.  This field went into winter in great shape, --good residue, standing tall with most of the plants still living.   The tall canola stubble, although not thick like wheat stubble, is great for reducing wind velocity near the soil surface, and snow catch.  Winter of 2017-2018 was not a big snow year like 2016 but we haven't seen any drifting in that field compared to mowed or tilled fields.
      I haven't sorted out the data for any comparison between CF/winter wheat and CC/winter wheat, or our canola on ground that has had a cover crop and ground that has never had a cover crop.  I may include that as an update to this post or it may take a post of it's own.

2015 SHELBOURNE STRIPPER HEADER - DRILL DEMONSTRATION

 [Update: 7/2/15]  Since the demonstration the weather has been hot and dry.  Part of my interest in the demonstration was to see what happened to seed zone moisture.  The "configuration" stated below has a broad meaning including opener type, closing disc's, packer wheels and their relationship to the opener.  The plot started with excellent moisture and good ground cover.  a)--Narrow hoe,--the configuration left an open seed trench that wicked off the moisture.   b)--Wide hoe,--the configuration powdered the surface soil.  The ground dried to the bottom plate of the Anderson opener.  A deeper depth would probably provide the dust mulch to hold moisture for seed germination.   c)--Double Disc,--the configuration provided a lot of tillage.  There was significant loose surface mulch that dried down to the firm soil.  A deeper depth will probably hold moisture for seed germination.   d)--Angled Single Disc,--the configuration did not firm up the slot, and moisture was lost where soil had been lifted by the disc.  A packer that firmed the loosened soil would probably hold moisture for germination.   e)--Single Disc with inverted T,--the configuration held moisture the best.  As advertised, if the integrity of the slot is not compromised (left open), very little moisture escapes.  Unfortunately that's easier said then done.
    All of these designs are good direct seed drills.  The effort applied for successful seeding will vary with the unit.  The old rule of thumb still applies, --disc drills work better in standing stubble compared to flattened stubble, and hoe drills prefer stubble length to be less than the row spacing.  
    June 23, was a warm day.  Seventy five people braved the heat and dirt to see five drill styles tackle the field of mowed and standing stubble.  The event was put on by the Palouse Rocklake Conservation District.  There was a good mix of farmers from a 60 mile radius, University  and USDA people, and two dealer representatives present.  Floor Dry was used in place of seed and that turned out to be a good substitute.  The white color contrasted well with the brown dirt, and we won't be fighting volunteer cultivars all summer and early fall.
     A WSU researcher reported on their studies with the Stripper Header at the Lind, WA station.  In general, the tall stubble keeps the ground warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.  Air velocity across the ground surface is significantly reduced with the longer stubble, which helped keep the boundary layer of high humidity at the soil surface.  In short, these factors reduce the rate of evaporation off the soil surface. As reported in an earlier post, evaporation is approximately 83% of our moisture use/loss.  Two weeks ago we placed four HOBO temperature sensors in the ground, --a) under a board firmed to the ground, b) under heavy mowed residue, c) under residue in tall stubble, and d) in bare ground with all surface residue removed, but untilled.  We will read them this fall and again next spring.  We have verified these results last year with our HOBO's.  This is an excellent site to add data for further verification.
     Grower experience with the stripper header indicate that increased capacity of older combines can be expected.  The stripper header is excellent in small grains.  We have harvested mustard with success.  We will attempt peas and garbs this year.  Theoretically the stripper header will harvest any crop that will fit under it's hood.
     Field background:  The field has been Direct Seeded  for 23 years with no residue manipulation other than mowing.  No harrowing.  The plot has 2014 winter wheat residue that had large areas mowed. Most of the area has good ground cover plus the 2014 crop residue.  The residue is very dry, and the ground under it has good moisture. The seeding area is complex with variable soils and variable residue conditions.   In the pic below, from left to right is the CrossSlot(single disc w inverted T), JD750(single disc w 7 degree angle), Horsch/Anderson(≈ 5"wide hoe), AgPro(≈1"narrow hoe), Palouse Zero Till(double disc).  All the units were designed as single pass drills, applying both seed and fertilizer.  Each drill made two passes with no changes from the original drill setup.

Results:  All the drill types were able to seed through the standing and mowed residue for the short distance encountered in the demonstration.  Some clumping and shedding of residue was noticed behind the hoe drills.  Each hoe drill did have a straw bridge at some point in the demo.  With the conditions as dry as they were, the disc drills ran easily through both the standing and mowed residue.  Straw tucking was evident, but probably not an issue with any of the disc drills.  The CrossSlot, with it's inverted T slot rarely show any effect of straw tucking even though that is the signature look.  The seed is tucked to the side in the T slot away from the straw.  The appearance of straw tuck helps eliminate sealing of the surface, making it easier for the coleoptile to emerge from the soil, while at the same time, sealing in the high humidity environment around the seed.  This design, if the slot closure is not compromised, allows seed to geminate in a lower moisture environment than other seeding systems.

     Pic above shows producers looking at the placement of the Floor Dry, and the approach of the Palouse Zero Till drill on it's return pass.

     One point of interest to me was the comparison of the CrossSlot with the JD750.  I have always accepted the idea that the JD750 was the lowest disturbance drill where it cuts-lifts-drops the soil in place.  However, the CrossSlot definitely left the field looking as if it caused less surface disturbance, and left the residue tighter on the surface.  Did the JD750 disturb more soil, and sift more seed through the residue onto the soil surface?  That is questionable.  Maybe time will tell.  Green growth and soil disturbance go hand in hand.  The more the disturbance, the more the green growth.

     A surprise to me was, which drill did more processing of the residue, and the soil surface.  I assumed that the Horsch, with it's wide hoe and recovery disc's to backfill the seed trench, would be the clear winner; however, the Palouse Zero Till with it's close row spacing may actually be more aggressive.  I think the green-up will decide the winner.

     All in all, I was pleased with the demonstration.  Hopefully the drill participants, along with the attendees learned a little, should they develop an interest in a stripper header.  It needs to be kept in mind that this was a relatively light crop with shorter than normal stubble height.  I hear that Shelbourne has recently doubled their manufacturing capacity, so, interest is apparently building.

     

Drilling with the CrossSlot - 2014

[Update 10/10/14]-- Today I measured the residue at the drilling site pictured below.  This spring I was apprehensive about whether the crop would emerge through the residue mat after coming through ≈2" of soil.  This measurement was from one 20"x 20"site.   It wasn't in the heaviest or lightest areas.   The first number is of the bright residue which was the 2014 spring wheat.  The second number is from the aged residue we had to drill into.  The third number is the chaff I sucked up off the surface.  1@(4oz)=3,920#/ac, 2@(12oz)=11761#/ac, 3@(8oz)=7841#/ac.   

[Update 9/22/14]--added video of seeding this field.

A pic of our first season seeding with the new drill.  This field is near Thornton and was seeded close to the Insurance cutoff date of May 15th. This is very heavy WW residue. This field was stripper headed and left at 40".  Wheel tracks and winter weather flattened a significant amount leaving a tangle.   The soil under the mat is very wet and has a temperature of 69 degrees.  

  We were able to punch seed into good earth.  The depth of the seed is around 2 inches

The pic below is a broader view of the conditions we were seeding into. 

July 31st -- The Pic below shows stand established in the approximate area.  I attempted to get the same line and angle of the shot to match the pic above, but missed.  I'm ecstatic over the stand, and the general look of the crop.  There are some tillers still filling, but most of the heads are filled out.  The 4th week of June we had a week of hot weather.  July was mostly hot with temperatures in the high 90's and several days of 100+ degree weather with more predicted to come.  Holes in the stand are few --mostly at the corners.  We need to adjust the "look ahead" setting to start seeding a little quicker.   There are small areas dotting the field where the crop is showing moisture stress, but the grain is not shriveling at this point.  Will this field mature into a good crop?  If it does, it will be do to stored moisture and lower evaporation rate because of the heavy residue level.  We'll see around Labor Day.  

COVER CROPS

[Update 11/28/14]  Cover crop potential in CRP: We are starting to take-out fields of CRP.  Last year two fields went back into crop production.  This coming summer we will take out 1-2 or 3 fields.  I now, am scouting fields with a more critical eye.  Instead of just looking for weed types with related location and density, I'm now looking at residue.  Because we haven't regularly put money into these CRP stands (fertilizer and herbicides), the actual volume of surface residue is quite low.  A lot of dirt showing!  In part, this condition is due to worm activity.  The vertical borers (night crawlers) pull a lot of material below the surface.  The top portion of the soil profile in our CRP is all worm castings.   
       To help develop Bio-mass, and increase N in our CRP stands prior to takeout, my thinking is that we should inter-seed a mix of 1-3 legume cultivars for an N source, a tillage radish, possibly a canola or mustard to pull nutrients and moisture from deep in the profile.   We should have considered inter-seeding these cultivars last spring.  This would have given a full years worth of growth prior to takeout.  Seeding this coming April and with planned takeout in May-July, the growth may not be sufficient to achieve desired results.
"Cover Crops" (CC) go by a number of names but all boil down to keeping something growing on the land as many days in the year as possible.  This is a hot topic in many of the farm magazines.  Nearly all of them are of mid western origin.  For the last couple of years I have been reading about them and the potential they offer, but have always agreed with the critics that it will probably work in the midwest with all their summer moisture, but not in our climate.  I'm not so sure now.  The last Direct Seed/Oil Seed Conference in Kennewick did shed some light on how it may be possible to successfully introduce cover cropping into our cropping system.  Statements like:  "look for opportunity," "introduce species to accomplish a specific goal," " stands don't have to be heavy/thick," "cover crops don't need to be large," "cover crops gain you more moisture than you lose," "a cover crop takes only 1.5" of moisture," is helpful in opening up the thought process to at least consider them.
      The question for me has always been how do you get your cash crop germinated with a cover crop taking your seed depth moisture?  Well, consider:  l)--look at breaking with tradition on seeding dates.  We are already using that technique to some extent to assure a successful seeding of our fall wheat.  2)--Use 30-60 day weather forecasting to discover opportunities.  We already give this consideration for fall seeding.  If the fall looks dry we move our seeding date up.  3)-- Consider stopping the CC before it enters the critical moisture level for the cash crop to germinate.  Cultivars vary in their high moisture use stage of growth, as well as the depth they tend to pull most of their moisture.
     Interseeding another cultivar in an established crop is another avenue to consider in attempts to build soil health and biodiversity.  Doing this is probably farther out of box than cover cropping.  Cover cropping was done to some extent in the region prior to commercial fertilizer(≈1940).  Sweet clover was a favorite cultivar to plow down.  Interseeding a biodiverse crop into a spring barley crop prior to jointing may have potential if you use an Ultra-low disturbance drill, and choose a cultivar that emerges fast and grows slow and has it's high moisture use late in it's growth cycle.   Hopefully one that could provide nitrogen for the following  cash crop.
     How do we remove fallow from our rotation??????   Well, we won't start any of this with big acreage.  We do have a perfect test acreage of ≈67ac.  It includes mostly shallow, diverse soils, with approximately 15" rainfall.  I am adding "Links" as I find information that appears to be helpful about growing cover crops in our area.  There are several studies in the Pullman, St. John, and Davenport, Wa. area on cover crops.

DRILLING INTO TALL STUBBLE 2013 - CONTINUED

[7/3/13 update] -- 
      Recent scouting of the spring planted barley fields shows a thin stand compared to some of the neighbors.  I contacted a crop specialist and a plant pathologist to evaluate the fields.  
     After seeing a plot with no fall applied glyphosate (see post title-- "importance of fall chemical treatment"), I was sure that we had a serious case of Rhizoctonia, -- and I expected it from past experience of seeding into green plant material (poor field sanitization). 
     In all cases where we checked, Rhizoctonia, if present, was a small part of the problem.  Testing will be done for plant diseases; however, the problem seems to be connected to planting depth, and compaction.  In all locations checked, seed was placed too shallow in the soil profile for early root development and crown establishment.  In all locations checked, the (shovel depth) soil profile showed multiple compaction layers.  Although these layers did not appear well defined, the roots have grown in mass, on horizontal planes, with restricted vertical growth.  Vertical root growth present appeared to traveling along old root channels and worm holes.  This crop will not utilize a lot of the 4 foot soil profile.  These fields have been continuously no-tilled for 20+ years with vertical disturbance limited to the depth of hoe opener on a single pass drill.  
       It was noticed that there was a lot of stubble left standing.  The barley heads had finally grown above the WW stubble so the field looks pretty normal.  There was a discussion on whether stubble should be left standing or be flat following seeding.  Research shows that standing stubble intercepts very little of the total amount of light energy; however, it does intercept some of the wave lengths, resulting in taller plants with fewer tillers.  I observed this condition in our spring barley fields.
       We will have to live with this crop; however, the good news is that these issues are relatively easy to fix.  The Cross-slot drill has proven that it can cut through tall, very heavy residue, even that which is matted down, with out plugging or pushing.  We need to monitor the depth setting more closely.  We may have to map the residue, creating zones where it is necessary to change the depth setting.  For the compaction, we will introduce a cultivar with a tap root (mustard, canola, garbs, alfalfa) as part of our crop rotation.  For the light intercept, we will incorporate a method to lay all the stubble down (plate, closer opener spacing, wider packers, segmented roller, ??).  Whatever we decide on, it will not create surface disturbance.  The heavy undisturbed residue proves to be a very good deterrent to weed emergence.   This is all good news for our concept of an ultra-low disturbance seeding system.  This experience probably goes a long ways in answering the question in the past of spring crops not doing well for us.  Winter crops do well because of the extra grow time to overcome the compaction issue.  We did experience significantly better wheat crops following mustard several years ago.  Diseases don't appear to be a factor for us to be concerned with.  Attention directed to making sure we have the seed at the proper depth for root and crown establishment appears to be critical for success in spring cropping.  We need to grow a tap root crop on all of our ground as quickly as possible and put it in as part of a regular rotation.

[6/5/13 - update]  --  
     MUSTARD @ St.John:  Most of the field is developing fine.  There are holes in the seeding and the very heavy area west of the shop is poor and will be destroyed in the near future.  Bloom has started
      At Thornton:  This field is developing well.  There appears to be fewer holes in the seeding.  We just destroyed 6ac along the drainage ditch that never received the preparatory spray this spring because of surface water.  Blooms are not showing yet.
     I am please with the seeding in general.  The drill penetrated the very heavy residue, which was a concern prior to our seeding.  The stand shows areas where we were not deep enough, or didn't hold enough disc pressure, to get the seed into soil.  Some was left on top of the soil under the residue.
     SPRING BARLEY @ St.John:  Most of the field is developing fine, and jointing.  There are holes showing in places, and an un-even development.  We are still seeing new plant emergence.  This is also mostly do to inoperative depth sensors giving an inadequate average across the drill.  We undoubtedly should have set the drill a little deeper, even if the depth sensors had been operating properly.
      At Thornton:  Very much the same as St.John.  The flat along the creek is doing very well.  When we seeded it, I didn't think this would emerge through the very deep matted residue.  The drill did cut through the residue, but left significant amount of seed on the soil surface under the residue matt.  This shows that seed doesn't need to be in the dirt to germinate and grow well if the matt provides the environment for seed germination and emergence.  The crown is set high.  Will the residue matt protect it when the weather turns dry and hot. 

[5/25/13 - original post]
      At St. John, I inspected the mustard and barley planting.
      Mustard:-- Earlier, the decision was made to replant and turn in an insurance claim.  Neighbors have reseeded their fields to the east and west of us.  Our decision was based on the flat area west of our shop.  It looks poor, with few viable plants visible.  Pithium and freeze damage were obvious and it appeared that seed may not have reached dirt in areas.  Today, the tale is different.  There are some small voids throughout the field, but generally, it is an excellent stand, except the flat west of the shop.  We will either fallow ≈10ac or seed winter canola later in July for harvest in 2014.  At this point, stand density and growth difference was not distinguishable between the areas with tall stubble, and areas with flat stubble.  We'll keep watching.
       Spring Barley:-- 99% of the field looks very good.  ≈1% has nothing but matted golden residue.  It appears that those areas, which are in draw bottoms, had sufficient depth of matted residue where the drill was not set deep enough to get the seed into dirt.  It is rowed up on the soil surface under the residue.  This is a condition that we will have to address in the future.  The options listed in an earlier post are still potential solutions.
       I will provide pics of these two fields in the near future.