No-till drill - price of a used (but good) one?

[buckdeer1]

An old van brundt drill will plant all that,it could also be broadcasted.There are lots of drills around that 6-7 ft width on sites like auctionhouse.com, govdeals.com, purple wave.You are looking for no till drill not a planter.I wouldn't worry about a NWSG box as it's cheaper to rent for NWSG and you can plant switch with a regular drill.

 

[buckdeer1]

meant auctiontime.com

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Yep, I get it. It was basically the equivalent of my buddy and I each buying a 4 wheeler. We are both lucky enough to be at a point where we have disposable income and our properties and habitat management are our primary hobby. Worth it to us but it will be a different answer for everybody.
The current economy and hard times ahead may actually have some used ones popping up for anyone in a position to be able to take advantage of it.

Do yourself (and your members) a favor and look at a few videos by Grant Woods on Growing Deer and the value of a NT Drill. Select one video that tells the whole story. Then send that video to your club members prior to discussion on adding a drill to your camp. Let him do the selling. Lay out the costs for the various scenarios of equipment you need to run the camp. If you have 20+ members......you could be into a drill for less than $1000 per member. That drill would reduce your costs over time....and provide better hunting in the future. With that many investors to spread the cost.....I think it is a no-brainer.

Foggy -

$1000 per member ............ that kills it right there !!! Stones bleed more readily. And from what several other guys on here are saying, the smaller-seeded things we typically plant don't work so well out of a drill. Drills work best with bigger seeds, they say. I've never used a drill, so I'll take their word for it. We don't have that many acres of plots like some properties / landowners do. Most of our acreage is woods.

I'll watch the videos you suggested. I was hoping used drills were a bit more reasonable, price-wise. Our members are TIGHT with funds. Uphill battle with expenditures for most things.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Look into fluid film. That will ease all your corrosion concerns.

I will. New term to me. Thanks Rit.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I say rent one from the local SWCD if you can to try it out and that might help the group put a value on it.

Another related thread:

The "value" of a no-till drill.

We have friends and colleagues on here that do everything from throw and go to massive plots on huge tracts. I have fallen on both ends of the spectrum at various stages in my life. Years ago I thought I would NEVER, let me say that again, NEVER buy a small no till drill for small to medium...

habitat-talk.com

 

[Bowsnbucks]

BnB - I am only planting 16 acres currently with my Land Pride 606NT drill (pictured in my avatar) but the price of the drill was well worth it to me and still would have been if I were only planting 10 acres. I did sell my conventional drill and my JD7000 4-row planter when I bought the no till drill so there was some “trade-in” value there also. I have not used my heavy duty disc, my 12‘ vibra shank cultivator or my 6’ (wing) cultivator at all since I purchased the NT drill and plan to sell some of those implements as well in the near future.

It is surprising what little equipment you need when you have a decent tractor and a no till drill. After 6 years of no-till and cover cropping I don't need fertilizer anymore so I could probably sell my 3 pt cyclone spreader as well. I still use my 3 pt sprayer but I hope to continue to minimize my use of herbicides. I do hope to acquire a roller/crimper some day but I have been able to get by with my cultipacker in the mean time. The only other implement I use now is my rotary mower (brush hog) occasionally.

As mentioned previously, if you take care of your equipment it holds its value very well. I mentioned this in another thread recently but I believe just about every piece of farm equipment I have purchased (mostly used), I have sold for more than I paid for it - including my first farm tractor. The way I look at it is that I am pretty much just using these things for free. I am very confident that if I kicked the bucket tomorrow, my estate would be able to sell all of my equipment for pretty close to or more than what I paid for it.

There is also a big savings when you plant no-till and use cover cropping wisely. With the price of fertilizer this year, I am pretty sure I saved around 2K this year alone just not having to use synthetic fertilizer. My tractor logs also show that I am sitting in the tractor seat less than half the time I was when I was turning dirt - from well over 200 hours per year to less than 100 hours per year (i also use my tractor for winter snow removal). This is a savings in diesel fuel as well as a huge savings in time and tractor maintenance. Speaking of maintenance, you need not worry about not having mechanical skills to maintain your drill. I have used my drill now for almost 7 full planting seasons and all I have had to do to mine is grease the zerk fittings, air up the tires once in a while and keep it clean. Pretty much zero maintenance. I do wash it after every use and it is always parked inside my pole barn.

The combination of ease of planting, savings on inputs and tremendous boost in creating healthy soils for me has been a no-brainer. I realize that a lot of folks aren't going to be able to come up with the initial cost of good no till equipment or they are only planting a few acres so they can get by fine with hand tools and/or ATV equipment. I have been planting food plots since 1986 so I‘ve been there and done that myself. In my current situation the no till planting works best for me and I didnt have to break into my 401k or steal the kids college tuition money to do it so everybody is happy at home. In your situation I see this as a minor expense for 20 camp members. They will find that regenerative ag, the release system, buffalo system, or whatever you choose to call it, certainly has far more “pros” than “co

I agree with the ideas you put forth. Many of our members are older and are VERY TIGHT with a dollar. They do most things "old school" and don't believe any modern research findings - on AG or anything else. Convincing them to no-till our plots - even a couple of them, has been a battle. "We never did it like that" is a commonly heard rebuttal. I'm no youngster myself - 60+ ......... but I trust newer farming / AG research coming from Penn State, Purdue and other such universities.

I'd like to see smarter planting practices at our camp going forward to improve our soil health. Hopefully the younger members will adopt such practices, but the older guys are a tough crowd to convince. Ego's get bruised at times, which is never a good thing.

In starting this thread, I'd hoped to discover that a good functional no-till drill could be found for $1K to $2500. They MIGHT swallow that price ......... but $5K or higher ........... won't happen. I hoped to find a drill so we could better plant plots utilizing thatch of previous crops and actually get the seed into the soil to improve germination. At the prices quoted in this thread ...... I guess we'll be sticking to T&M, or T& Roll. I don't doubt the positives of a drill - our members won't spend that kind of dough to buy one.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Don't stop posting drill info just because OUR camp members won't spend the money for a drill for our place. We all learn from the info you guys post on here. Maybe other guys will profit from the info posted here. If the info posted on this thread helps others ....... it's all good.

 

[yoderjac]

There is no doubt a no-till drill has lots of value. The question becomes is the differential value over other no-till techniques sufficient to justify the cost (redirecting time and money from other habitat projects). For some, it clearly will be worth it, but for others, it won't. For me, I split the baby in half. I could not come close to justifying the cost of a "big-boy" no-till drill. At the time, I was planting large seeded crops like beans and corn. I ended up spending 3K on a used Kasco 4' versadrill and then modified it. Now that I've changed crop selection, it just sits most of the time, but I'm still glad I purchased it. When I need it, I need it. It also does a great job at some tasks like drilling radish into suppressed clover.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Bowsnbucks]

The "value" of a no-till drill.

We have friends and colleagues on here that do everything from throw and go to massive plots on huge tracts. I have fallen on both ends of the spectrum at various stages in my life. Years ago I thought I would NEVER, let me say that again, NEVER buy a small no till drill for small to medium...

habitat-talk.com

I get it. I'd like to have a drill. Our members won't spend the kind of money necessary to get even a good used one. My hopes were dashed when I read the prices posted on this thread for used drills. $5K would be cause for strokes, let alone $10K or more. They won't see the reduced time spent cultivating, reduced fuel costs, wear & tear on the tractor or various implements, or less seed / better germination, etc.

Thanks for posting the link - I learned more about the benefits of drills.

 

[Wild Thing]

Foggy -

$1000 per member ............ that kills it right there !!! Stones bleed more readily. And from what several other guys on here are saying, the smaller-seeded things we typically plant don't work so well out of a drill. Drills work best with bigger seeds, they say. I've never used a drill, so I'll take their word for it. We don't have that many acres of plots like some properties / landowners do. Most of our acreage is woods.

I'll watch the videos you suggested. I was hoping used drills were a bit more reasonable, price-wise. Our members are TIGHT with funds. Uphill battle with expenditures for most things.

Not sure where you heard that BnB but my drill plants small seed extremely well - far better than you could ever do by hand or with a rotary spreader.

You can’t see the whole plot here beacause of the topography but I drilled this entire 1 acre plot with only 2# of RR Sugar Beet seed. Try doing that by hand or with anything else besides a precision planter.

 

[yoderjac]

Foggy -

...And from what several other guys on here are saying, the smaller-seeded things we typically plant don't work so well out of a drill. ...

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying small seeds don't work well out of a drill. I love the seed metering system on my kasco and once calibrated, I can plant about any mix. Many drills have a small seed box so you can drill a row crop or cereal and plant clover at a different rate. My point was that you don't "need" a drill to no-till most small seeds like the ones you listed. Some cereal grains like WR surface broadcast and cultipacked germinate at higher rates than others like oats or WW. It is easy enough to compensate with higher seeding rates. If I want to plant a small seed like clover or PTT, I often disconnect the seed tubes from the planting shoes. This causes the seed tubes to bounce around and drop the seed randomly but all in front of the cultipacker on the back of the drill. It is the same effect as surface broadcasting small seed and then cultipacking but much slower. That is one reason that I now only use the Kasco for tasks when I need it. My kasco is only 4' wide so it takes a lot of passes and it is slow. With my 3-pt broadcast spreader, I can run much faster since there is no ground engagement and with the wide broadcast range, it only takes a few passes. My cultipacker is at least twice as wide as the Kasco and since it runs on the surface, I can run it faster. Also, my Kasco, unlike the big-boy drills, does not handle trash very well.

So, bottom line, T&M is much more efficient for me. Now if someone donated a nice big-boy drill to me, it would be a different story. Like your club, I'm just too tight with money to lay out the cash for a big-boy drill given the differential benefit.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[TreeDaddy]

I say rent one from the local SWCD if you can to try it out and that might help the group put a value on it.

Another related thread:

The "value" of a no-till drill.

We have friends and colleagues on here that do everything from throw and go to massive plots on huge tracts. I have fallen on both ends of the spectrum at various stages in my life. Years ago I thought I would NEVER, let me say that again, NEVER buy a small no till drill for small to medium...

habitat-talk.com

That thread was helpful ^^^^^^

bill

 

[buckdeer1]

Heres my drill,well not really it's my son in laws and he's got 2 of them.They won't even fit through my food plot entrance

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Heres my drill,well not really it's my son in laws and he's got 2 of them.They won't even fit through my food plot entrance

It's not nice to tease !!!!
Well - that ought to get the job done.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying small seeds don't work well out of a drill. I love the seed metering system on my kasco and once calibrated, I can plant about any mix. Many drills have a small seed box so you can drill a row crop or cereal and plant clover at a different rate. My point was that you don't "need" a drill to no-till most small seeds like the ones you listed. Some cereal grains like WR surface broadcast and cultipacked germinate at higher rates than others like oats or WW. It is easy enough to compensate with higher seeding rates. If I want to plant a small seed like clover or PTT, I often disconnect the seed tubes from the planting shoes. This causes the seed tubes to bounce around and drop the seed randomly but all in front of the cultipacker on the back of the drill. It is the same effect as surface broadcasting small seed and then cultipacking but much slower. That is one reason that I now only use the Kasco for tasks when I need it. My kasco is only 4' wide so it takes a lot of passes and it is slow. With my 3-pt broadcast spreader, I can run much faster since there is no ground engagement and with the wide broadcast range, it only takes a few passes. My cultipacker is at least twice as wide as the Kasco and since it runs on the surface, I can run it faster. Also, my Kasco, unlike the big-boy drills, does not handle trash very well.

So, bottom line, T&M is much more efficient for me. Now if someone donated a nice big-boy drill to me, it would be a different story. Like your club, I'm just too tight with money to lay out the cash for a big-boy drill given the differential benefit.

Given our camp's frugal nature, I don't see a drill in our near future unless one of us hits a lottery.

For our min-till / no-tilling, I think we'll be doing T&M. Our plots have been satisfactory without drilling. We aren't going for the cover of "Food Plotters Monthly" !!! I was under the impression that for good plot success, in some situations - a drill was almost necessary. Broadcasting seed over top of existing thatch (whatever type) was the situation I THOUGHT would be better done with a drill - as opposed to broadcasting. Maybe it's not that hyper-critical. We do pack after seeding to get better seed/soil contact, and that probably knocks seeds down through the thatch that haven't already hit the soil. OPINIONS WELCOME!!!

I guess I drew the wrong conclusion on smaller seeds not working well in a drill. Wild Thing's post above showed they DO WORK well. No doubt - as shown in his pic.

 

[KingLoser]

Given our camp's frugal nature, I don't see a drill in our near future unless one of us hits a lottery.

For our min-till / no-tilling, I think we'll be doing T&M. Our plots have been satisfactory without drilling. We aren't going for the cover of "Food Plotters Monthly" !!! I was under the impression that for good plot success, in some situations - a drill was almost necessary. Broadcasting seed over top of existing thatch (whatever type) was the situation I THOUGHT would be better done with a drill - as opposed to broadcasting. Maybe it's not that hyper-critical. We do pack after seeding to get better seed/soil contact, and that probably knocks seeds down through the thatch that haven't already hit the soil. OPINIONS WELCOME!!!

I guess I drew the wrong conclusion on smaller seeds not working well in a drill. Wild Thing's post above showed they DO WORK well. No doubt - as shown in his pic.

It's my understanding you broadcast into the standing vegetation, then mow/roll/knock down the thatch on top of it. Just clarifying because it seems you said doing your mowing/killing first.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

It's my understanding you broadcast into the standing vegetation, then mow/roll/knock down the thatch on top of it. Just clarifying because it seems you said doing your mowing/killing first.

I broadcast into standing stuff first, then roll it down. When I mentioned seed getting down through thatch, I was thinking of a few times our members mowed or sprayed standing crops - usually buckwheat or rye - before we seeded. I was hoping the seed would still get down through that thatch, since it was already down. I followed advice from others on here that said to overseed first - THEN roll down the existing crop to make a thatch cover to hold in moisture. But sometimes we end up with guys getting anxious, and rolling / mowing first.

 

[yoderjac]

It's my understanding you broadcast into the standing vegetation, then mow/roll/knock down the thatch on top of it. Just clarifying because it seems you said doing your mowing/killing first.

It is really doing to depend on your situation. Another consideration is noxious weeds. There are some noxious weeds that you may want to mow before the seed becomes viable but that may not coincide with the best planting time.

The real key is understanding the underlying principles. The "Ray the Soil Guy" videos are a good start for understanding the basic principles. Then look at the Crimson n Camo T&M thread for examples of how they can be applied without the big equipment. Then we tailor our techniques to our particular situation including resources available. There is not one-way to do it.

 

[Foggy47]

FWIW......There is a guy on you tube I follow that uses a Tar River "Conventional" 3 point drill to do his plots. He paid like $3500 for it new. He does seem to tell it like it is. A good guy.

IF YOU HAVE SANDY SOILS.....many guys can make this work. His channel is called "The Back Forty" and his name is Mark. Google him or look it up on YouTube. He shows a few years of the no till process with first an old pull type drill and later with the Tar River 3 point conventional drill. Seems like he is making it work pretty well with a small tractor.....and is using the same seed mixes and process as Grant Wood's Buffalo System.. He is snuggling a bit with handling the rye without a roller / crimper....but is getting it done. Basically this is the same drill as a Tar River Saya (5 or 7 foot) but without the front slicing coulters. Has a good price savings.

 

[omicron1792]

Given our camp's frugal nature, I don't see a drill in our near future unless one of us hits a lottery.

For our min-till / no-tilling, I think we'll be doing T&M. Our plots have been satisfactory without drilling. We aren't going for the cover of "Food Plotters Monthly" !!! I was under the impression that for good plot success, in some situations - a drill was almost necessary. Broadcasting seed over top of existing thatch (whatever type) was the situation I THOUGHT would be better done with a drill - as opposed to broadcasting. Maybe it's not that hyper-critical. We do pack after seeding to get better seed/soil contact, and that probably knocks seeds down through the thatch that haven't already hit the soil. OPINIONS WELCOME!!!

I guess I drew the wrong conclusion on smaller seeds not working well in a drill. Wild Thing's post above showed they DO WORK well. No doubt - as shown in his pic.

A firminator could be a compromise. The discs set straight make small slots in soil, and the cultipacker really helps with germination. Then can mow thatch down that stands back up. I’ve had good success with mine.