No Till coulter depth settings

Wind Gypsy

5 year old buck +
Reading through the 2 pages of calibration and operating instructions for my new Esch drill, they suggest setting the coulters 1/2-1" deeper than seeding depth (which I assumed means depth of the trench left by the double disk openers). This is contrary to what I've seen elsewhere while researching this online where people advise setting the coulters slightly shallower than openers to avoid creating a false bottom that seeds can drop to below the bottom of the seed trench created by the openers. This particular drill has wavy coulters, i'd imagine they are more prone to opening a bigger slit than smooth coulters but i don't know that.

What has worked well for you folks using no till drills? Do soil and residue conditions change how you'd approach this?
 
Texted with a college buddy who farms many thousands of acres and his input was the frequent answer of "it depends". Basically (which seems obvious after the fact):

- if planting shallower you may want the coulters a little deeper than the openers to make sure you're getting a good slit in the residue or sod.
-if planting deeper, you're probably getting through the residue/sod and can run the coulters a little shallower to avoid a false bottom.
-mess with it based on conditions and what you're seeing.
 
Texted with a college buddy who farms many thousands of acres and his input was the frequent answer of "it depends". Basically (which seems obvious after the fact):

- if planting shallower you may want the coulters a little deeper than the openers to make sure you're getting a good slit in the residue or sod.
-if planting deeper, you're probably getting through the residue/sod and can run the coulters a little shallower to avoid a false bottom.
-mess with it based on conditions and what you're seeing.
Does your Esch have a small seed box? does it deliver seeds to the trench created by the openers ? or does it deposit seeds just behind the trench?? Often folks will keep the larger seeds in the front box where depth is not as critical....and the small seeds would then be either on top of the larger seeds or "sprinkled" behind the trench to be pressed into the slightly cultivated dirt. Depends. Grin.

I've been considering getting a "backup camera" that could be clamped (or magneted) to the drill to watch the seed drop operation. It's hard to know just what is taking place. I could use that backup camera in several other areas too.
 
Does your Esch have a small seed box? does it deliver seeds to the trench created by the openers ? or does it deposit seeds just behind the trench?? Often folks will keep the larger seeds in the front box where depth is not as critical....and the small seeds would then be either on top of the larger seeds or "sprinkled" behind the trench to be pressed into the slightly cultivated dirt. Depends. Grin.

I've been considering getting a "backup camera" that could be clamped (or magneted) to the drill to watch the seed drop operation. It's hard to know just what is taking place. I could use that backup camera in several other areas too.

It has a small seed box that drops seed behind the openers. The backup cam idea is interesting. My stepdad has one of those aftermarket ones in an older pickup used for trailering stuff around at the cabin. Might be pretty easy to set up.
 
I'm still in AZ until next week.....and could not remember the arrangement on my SAYA drill.....as it relates to the drop tubes for the front and rear boxes. So I looked at some pics on the Zimmerman website. Kinda wondering if I could remove the tubes from the rear drop area and attach them back a few inches. My sandy soil does not take much to cover those seeds (when its dry) via that roller and the spring-loaded flaps. Not sure when planning into good cover tho......then it may pay to leave them as shown in these pics.

I'm really uncertain how the seeds from the front differentiate from the seeds that are dropped via the rear box. (In the pics the rear tube is closest to those scrapers). Not certain if the seed is directed to a semi closed trench here? Is your Esch similar design??
 

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I think the esch is pretty similar to how Great Plains does it but it’s a solid metal tube for the small seeds that you couldn’t disconnect and let swing free like some guys do with the Great Plains.D4A1B76C-BF26-42DE-8F74-7C880334DCB6.png
 
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Just educating myself a bit......and decided to see how the seed drop on the ESCH drills is handled. Looks to me like the small seed box has a steel tube that orients the seeds to a location a few inches behind the trench as shown in the pic below. I kinda like this arrangement. I'm not sure my SAYA has a tube like this. Didn't take the time to study this stuff last fall.


EDIT: lol....^ you beat me too it.
 

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