That’s beautiful land my friend.
Thanks. We love it.
Looks like one of my winter projects - love the idea (and I would have never thought of it, ever). Thanks for posting all those pics.
I'm not sure I did it right, but we just used penetrating oil before we got going.
That's a great method to align coulters. Mine are not "perfect" and I may try that next spring. (provided I can remember that long....grin).
JonJ - I like your idea. How do you ensure that the board is square with the drill?
breddick - So let's say you're planting an acre of brassicas at 6 pounds per acre. You just mix the brassicas in with a 50 pound bag of rye grain and then calibrate to, say, 50-55 pounds per acre (I'd rather have some left over than run out)? Second question: What's a reasonable application rate range to calibrate to? 5 pound range? 10 pound range? Thanks.
I have ran as little as 8 lbs out of the small seed box (white clover, red clover, PTT, DER mix) while running 100 lbs of rye, 8 lbs of winter peas, and 5 lbs of GHRadish in the fromt box.). I used a setting of 3/4 of the 1. (or less than 1 when calibrating and it was spot on for seed delivery). I did not use the factory seed delivery method....instead placing these small seeds behind the seed trench as shown above.
I am contemplating doing this next spring to better align my coulters.....and wondered a bit about "square" too. I really think a long board like that should be fairly easy to visually set square.....but attaching a second board at one end of the slotted board to act as a T-square may be better? That should work.
ACCman - Maybe a dumb question, but why not just spin the basket by hand?
I've tried both ways....but only turn the wheel by hand now. I think I do 26 (?) revolutions to get the needed yardage. I quit using plastic bags......and now use low (under the bed) plastic storage trays to collect the seeds from all the drops. Works well......the only issue is you need to do the front hopper separate from the rear hopper. <----has not been a big issue for me.
T-square theory makes sense. I found that the slot was tight on the outer edge of the coulter. If you let the drill down on the board it seats and stays on when you raise again. With board just off ground it points square to the coulter and only as square to the drill as the coulter is square. There is some slop in the coulter mounts as they are mounted with pin into drilled holes, not precision bearings. So, this board method is as precise as the engineering of coulter mounting. It sure looks good when done and with help from wife raising and lowering drill only took an hour.
See my response to Foggy, it's only as square as coulter itself.
I've done it that way also. I've also used a electric impact wrench with the socket. In my feeble mind keeping the basket moving at the same rpm for the 26 revolutions should give you a better calibration, but thats just a guess. After all, we are dealing with early 1900's technology. When I was a kid we would take the old drill to the field and on the woods road lower the drill with the openers flush with the road , and travel a few feet then look at the the amount of seed in the pinestraw, and if it looked like enough seed, we drilled, if not, made an adjustment and tried again. If the 2nd adjustment satisfied the farmer we lowered the openers and drilled, and always got great stands. Sometime I think we overthink things and know I am guilty of that.
^. Yep....Understand what your saying here. Grains are not so critical. But I strive to get a proper amount of brassica seed down. Not too much or too little.....'cause that can ruin a plot pretty fast. Some of the others are not as important......but I also normally buy just enough seed to get the job done over about 10 acres. Hate to come up short, and some of those seeds are expensive too. (Like alfalfa.) Times change.
