The Rural Voice, 1989-02, Page 25Not all of the adjustments are
delicate. A fencepost and a pipe
wrench will be needed to lever planter
units back into alignment. Sometimes
metal fatigue will take planter units
off centre, but usually it's one of the
outside units that gets hooked in a
turn, or the double disc openers get
hooked going over some obstacle.
The final check should be to align
planter boxes with drive shafts. You
may find some as much as 1/4 of an
inch off. When shafts don't line up, it
puts extra stress on the unit and causes
it to run roughly, which shakes the
seed out of the finger units. After you
adjust the shafts and the seed boxes
the first time, number each box so it
always goes on the same planter unit.
What about the fertilizer disc
openers? The same procedure holds
true for them. Your fertilizer won't be
placed in the most efficient position if
the openers are bent off angle, badly
worn, or have insufficient tension.
A starter fertilizer band must be
placed two inches over from the seed
and two inches below the seed. You'd
be surprised at how many fields I see
where the fertilizer is placed no deeper
than the seed.
Most planters run somewhere
between 2 inches and 3 1/2 inches, all
on the same planter: obviously fac-
tory placement. Check yours over —
I'd be surprised if all are functioning
at 100 per cent.
I see two benefits to following
through on planter tune-up. First, it
eliminates spring downtime. Second,
it keeps the planter running as accur-
ately as possible. As a crop consult-
ant, I try to match hybrids, plant popu-
lations, and fertility for top economic
yields. If the planter can't deliver that,
it doesn't make much difference what
you planted. It hurts yield every time
there's a double or a skip.
A third benefit is extended
planter life. My guess is that a well-
maintained planter will become tech-
nologically obsolete before it needs to
be replaced.
Just how serious do some people
get about proper planter maintenance?
I know a crop consulting firm in
Nebraska that has a team of men that
specializes in planter tune-ups. Going
from farm to farm, they serviced more
than 1,000 planters last year.0
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o
Hill & Hill Farms Ltd.
Bev Hill
VARNA
233-3218
Pete Rowntree
FEBRUARY 1989 23