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Jim

Posted 5/15/2008 00:45 (#378326)
Subject: Corn on Corn at 60 acres/hr, Corn on wheat , No till vs strip till, CCS etc...Pics from today

Driftless SW Wisconsin

I probably have the best job in the world in the spring time - working with a group of fascinating people in a wide range of planting conditions.

Today was impressive working with a customer with a John Deere DB-90 set up as a 54 row 20" planter. This customer and another in the area have our new Gfx remote adjust floating row cleaner system and 2 Curvetine closing wheels per row. This was in west central South Dakota.

A little background on SD agriculture, at least as I see it: the state is really two very different ag systems. One east of US Hwy 281 which tends to be moist in the spring, and one west of Hwy 281 which has historically been cattle rangeland and is much drier but now producing row crops in addition to great steaks and wheat. I think of Hwy 281 as almost a shower curtain, although this spring it is wet on BOTH sides of 281!

Spring Strip Till, as shown in the photos Joe posted of his recent trip, seems to be an excellent system east of Hwy 281 for several reasons I won't get into now. West of Hwy 281, one-pass no till of row crops seems to be the way to go in most years due to moisture limitations and extremely large farm size.

One customer I was with today with the 54R20 was no-till planting corn on corn. This was impressive. One man operating and filling a 90 foot wide 54 row planter at about 6 mph and applying 5 gal/a 10-34-0+zinc at a rate of over 60 acres per hour!

And doing a great job of seeding! The corn was planted about 2-1/4" deep in very moist soil. This excellent operator was using autosteer (obviously!) and a well thought out loading/fill system where he filled the entire planter with seed and fertilizer in about 15 minutes by himself.

Watching him reminded me of the post recently debating the merits of the CCS system....I tell you that if you saw the way this machine operated in this application there is no doubt that this is the way to go on wide planters.

For this year the customers mounted our row cleaner control valve (with float pressure control) just outside the rear cab window so it could be adjusted without leaving the cab - on all 54 rows!

I don't want to go on too long. Many things caught my attention. One thing we have noticed about the Gfx is that for the first time we can run a double wheel/standard angle row cleaner on a 20" planter and get through some HEAVY (for SD but not for IL) 20" corn residue! I am looking forward to seeing how we do in 240 bu corn residue on 30" rows although in 240 bu areas we should probably be strip tilling ahead of the planter not no tilling (in a very wet year at least) as Paul's post pointed out earlier. Due to the dry, cold climate here, residue does not breakdown very much over the winter. These stalks were tall and tough as maybe you can imagine from the photos.

I rode on the rear platform for awhile and was amazed at how the GFX frame mounted design let even piles from the combine stopping clear and go through without plugging. Even with these stalks leaning into or away from us, we did not plug once from residue that required us to stop during the entire time I was with this planter even though we are on 20" row spacing in corn on corn. Joe has done some good work with this product.

I'll also add a couple pictures of another SD customer on a John Deere DB60 36R20 running notill planting corn into wheat stubble. This customer is a very innovative person who has been notilling a long time. These soils are gorgeous for SD or anywhere. You can't stick a knife into the ground without bringing up 3 or 4 earthworms. In both the corn and wheat residue, this residue will hold the moisture between the rows for when it is needed later. But right now it is wet even here on the dry side of 281.

This is not a common situation for most of us on NAT but I am posting this because it shows a different side of the corn belt and possibilities for the future. This is an example of how the electronics in the cab (RTK autosteer etc), modern toolbars (the Bauer is an excellent bar), JD seeding systems, corn genetic advances and residue management/seed slot closing systems are all coming together.

We probably AVERAGED about 60 acres an hour even including fill time! (the in-cab acres per hr indicator was actually above 60!)

Here are some photos I hope will be of general interest to others in different areas also.

Jim at Dawn

And many thanks to these customers.

Edited by Jim 5/15/2008 01:15