The Agronomic Impact of Worn Planters

“Planting is the most important pass that a farmer makes in a growing season. What you do at planting time and the quality of the job that is left behind is the foundation that the rest of the growing season builds on. It is critical that your planter is working at its maximum to ensure that your crops are planted at a level of quality that matches the effort that you put into raising them”

Opening Discs

• Highly worn opening discs will “cut” through soil and residue less easily, resulting in potential for “hair pinning” of crop material as well as uneven depth of the seed trench. Ununiform seeding depth causes more variation in date of emergence of the crop which will cost yield later on in the year. Later emerging plants compete with earlier emerging plants and act like weeds.
• Late emerging plants often have smaller ears and less overall yield.

Worn Out/Poorly Performing Closing System

• Caused by either worn bushings, bearings in closing system. Poorly performing but lightly used systems can be caused by many factors; incorrect choice in closing wheel style (rubber, cast, notched etc.), improper pressure on the system (too much can cause planter to not penetrate the soil or overly pack the seed trench, too little can allow for air pockets to remain in the seed trench. Air in the seed trench caused poor seed to soil contact. Given that a corn seed needs to imbibe water until the seed reaches 30% moisture, maximum soil contact with firm moist – but not overly packed soil is critical
• Planting in wet conditions or with too much downforce on the row unit can cause sidewall compaction, this is a result of smearing of the sides of the seed trench by the opening system. A well-functioning closing system may alleviate some of these issues (with notched or spiked closing wheels for example)
• Closing wheels that are not centered over the seed trench (ie. Bushing worn or closing system not re-installed correctly) can cause too much compaction directly over the seed, or not enough of a packing force over the trench. This is variable depending on the way in which the closing system is out of adjustment

Worn Out Gauge Wheel Arms/Bearings

• Worn out arms or overly worn bearings will cause the wheels to rattle around as the planter rolls across the field. Worn bearings will add resistance to the rolling of the wheels which in soft soils can cause them to push soil rather than roll across it. When the arms are worn out and the wheels rattle, the seed trench wall wont form properly, which can cause inconsistent seeding depth, leading to uneven emergence.

Incorrect Unit Downforce

• Downforce on the row unit that is too high can cause the seed walls to be compacted which will impact how well the seedling is able to branch out its nodal roots and reach fertilizer and moisture
• Too little downforce on the row unit can cause the unit to bounce in uneven soil conditions or on small soil clods as the planter travels across the field.
• The amount of downforce required to properly put the seed in the ground at the correct depth is variable, cause by the physical weight of the planting unit (including seed in the hopper) as well as the soil type and condition (loosely worked sand vs. no-till into heavy clay soils, etc.)
• Some options to alleviate these issues are spring downforce (this is not variable and doesn’t result in significantly more downforce), pneumatic downforce (air bag system on the units which increases the pressure in the bags causing more downforce. This can be active or constant, however the active is slow to respond to changes across the field) and IRHD (individual row hydraulic downforce, this changes nearly instantly as the planter travels across the field and is best suited to a wide variety of planting conditions)

Wear Components within the Seed Meter:

• The various metering systems equipped on John Deere planters are complex pieces of engineering. Designed to cingulate at high levels while maintaining seeding accuracy. Due to the complex nature of the meters and the extensive use that they will see, it is strongly recommended to have them tested in order to make sure they are functioning correctly at maximum performance. Poor singulation with the meters can result in excessive amounts of skip/doubles in the row, which in turn will directly reduce yield and profits even if everything else on the planter and in the cropping system is working perfectly

If you feel like your Planter may be worn or want to learn more on how to avoid these issues, contact your Fulline Precision Ag Specialist today!