As the title implies this is a thread aimed at providing an ongoing review of the No Till drill manufactured by Tar River. I just bought the drill a few weeks ago and other than some test "passes" I haven't seen any results yet. Therefor my review will be an ongoing thread rather than single big post.
A little background. I have about 200 acres of property in northeast Arkansas. Around 170 acres is mature timber and the other 30ish is creek bottom / pasture / plots. It's really a nice habitat in the making. I've owned the property for just under 10 years and over that time have tried hard to get good plots in and had some successes and plenty of failures. I've got all the traditional tillage equipment and in the past have disked, tilled, dragged, sprayed, planted, etc (not necessarily in that order) and have found it to be extremely labor intensive (hours that I don't have) and therefor only was able to plant ~ 5 acres max of soybeans / year. I used an older 2 row JD planter that did a great job. Rows were 22" wide (as narrow as I could get them). 5 acres of soybeans on 22" rows did not do well for my property. The deer density is too much and the fresh clean dirt seedbed made the rows stick out like a sore thumb. That was year one. Disaster. Year two and on I did the same thing but invested heavily ($ and time) by using electric fence (solar). Beans did amazing but the hassle of fencing / maintaining fencing, and only having ~5 acres of beans when all finished made it less than ideal. I was still happy with my results and the deer hunting in the fall was good too.
I (like dang near everyone else) am a fan of Grant Woods and had been drooling over a Genesis drill for a few years. The $12-15K price tag wasn't appealing but I was willing to bite the bullet if needed. One concern I had was my tractor is a 32HP JD 4300... and the 5' light Genesis drill was a concern for me to carry.
In comes the Tar River... The 507 is a 6.5' NT drill that weighs in at 1400 lbs (empty). 10 rows at 7.5" spacing. (you guys can look up all the additional specs). Two weight shelves to enable me to make it as heavy as I want. Empty my JD 4300 picked it up no issue so I started adding weight. After about 300 lbs on the shelf my 3 pt started to strain a little. I had also put some weight in the FEL bucket to help balance the tractor.
The instruction manual is pretty thin so a lot of my "figuring" just came from looking at the drill and figuring it out as I went. It's not rocket science.
Into moist soil the drill would easily cut 1.5- 2" deep and get the beans into the ground just right. This was into 100% unworked ground (old pasture). Again, this ground was very moist. NOT dry and not muddy.
The roll cage / crimper on the back does crimp the standing vegetation over and I'm not sure how that will translate into the fall if I want to do the buffalo system. I suppose I could fabricate a wheel system to replace the cage if I wasn't happy with the pressing down of the beans... However, no way will I do that at this time. I'll see how it does this year. I know in the past I've had beans stand up that were run over by the actual tires of the tractor / 4 wheeler so I am optimistic some will stand. Less than a wheel system like the Genesis? Very likely. Enough to matter? We shall see. Also assume that if I plant 20 acres of soybeans I could easily buffalo and skip rows to plant say 10ish acres of the fall planting leaving 50% of the beans untouched? I'm sure there will be some experimenting going on.
Back to the weight of the planter. I was concerned with the 10 rows / 1400 lbs as that's only 140 lbs / row of pressure. However, I also realized that it's a 6.5' planter. If I were to remove the outer row (all parts) and make it a 8 row planter that would turn it into a 5 '3" planter with 175 lbs of pressure / row... before adding any seed or shelf weight. So I could easily get it to 200 lbs / row and still have a 5' planter. I don't plan on doing this for starters but the option will remain.
I'll stop the review here for now. Pics to come. So far VERY pleased. For $6k I am having a hard time thinking it's less than half as good as a Genesis 5.
A little background. I have about 200 acres of property in northeast Arkansas. Around 170 acres is mature timber and the other 30ish is creek bottom / pasture / plots. It's really a nice habitat in the making. I've owned the property for just under 10 years and over that time have tried hard to get good plots in and had some successes and plenty of failures. I've got all the traditional tillage equipment and in the past have disked, tilled, dragged, sprayed, planted, etc (not necessarily in that order) and have found it to be extremely labor intensive (hours that I don't have) and therefor only was able to plant ~ 5 acres max of soybeans / year. I used an older 2 row JD planter that did a great job. Rows were 22" wide (as narrow as I could get them). 5 acres of soybeans on 22" rows did not do well for my property. The deer density is too much and the fresh clean dirt seedbed made the rows stick out like a sore thumb. That was year one. Disaster. Year two and on I did the same thing but invested heavily ($ and time) by using electric fence (solar). Beans did amazing but the hassle of fencing / maintaining fencing, and only having ~5 acres of beans when all finished made it less than ideal. I was still happy with my results and the deer hunting in the fall was good too.
I (like dang near everyone else) am a fan of Grant Woods and had been drooling over a Genesis drill for a few years. The $12-15K price tag wasn't appealing but I was willing to bite the bullet if needed. One concern I had was my tractor is a 32HP JD 4300... and the 5' light Genesis drill was a concern for me to carry.
In comes the Tar River... The 507 is a 6.5' NT drill that weighs in at 1400 lbs (empty). 10 rows at 7.5" spacing. (you guys can look up all the additional specs). Two weight shelves to enable me to make it as heavy as I want. Empty my JD 4300 picked it up no issue so I started adding weight. After about 300 lbs on the shelf my 3 pt started to strain a little. I had also put some weight in the FEL bucket to help balance the tractor.
The instruction manual is pretty thin so a lot of my "figuring" just came from looking at the drill and figuring it out as I went. It's not rocket science.
Into moist soil the drill would easily cut 1.5- 2" deep and get the beans into the ground just right. This was into 100% unworked ground (old pasture). Again, this ground was very moist. NOT dry and not muddy.
The roll cage / crimper on the back does crimp the standing vegetation over and I'm not sure how that will translate into the fall if I want to do the buffalo system. I suppose I could fabricate a wheel system to replace the cage if I wasn't happy with the pressing down of the beans... However, no way will I do that at this time. I'll see how it does this year. I know in the past I've had beans stand up that were run over by the actual tires of the tractor / 4 wheeler so I am optimistic some will stand. Less than a wheel system like the Genesis? Very likely. Enough to matter? We shall see. Also assume that if I plant 20 acres of soybeans I could easily buffalo and skip rows to plant say 10ish acres of the fall planting leaving 50% of the beans untouched? I'm sure there will be some experimenting going on.
Back to the weight of the planter. I was concerned with the 10 rows / 1400 lbs as that's only 140 lbs / row of pressure. However, I also realized that it's a 6.5' planter. If I were to remove the outer row (all parts) and make it a 8 row planter that would turn it into a 5 '3" planter with 175 lbs of pressure / row... before adding any seed or shelf weight. So I could easily get it to 200 lbs / row and still have a 5' planter. I don't plan on doing this for starters but the option will remain.
I'll stop the review here for now. Pics to come. So far VERY pleased. For $6k I am having a hard time thinking it's less than half as good as a Genesis 5.