dpilot83 - 5/27/2009 10:30

If you wanted to get the most acres per row per day you would have a 1 row planter with a CCS system. You would never have to stop. If you were doing 30" rows and going 5 mph you would be covering about 1.5 acres an hour and in a 12 hour day with 90% efficiency (you still have to turn around on each end of the field) you could do about 16.36 acres. You would only have to spend about a minute greasing the row unit.

Now move up to an 8 row. If you can do 16.36 acres a day with a one row planter surely you should be able to do 130 acres in a day with an 8 row planter in 12 hours. The problem is that you have to spend more time filling 8 rows, more time greasing 8 rows and if your fields are smaller than 130 acres you may have to include moving time for the day.

Now move up to a 16 row. Surely you should be able to do 261 acres in a 12 hour day with a 16 row. Except that your greasing and filling time has doubled over the 8 row and increased 16 times over the 1 row. The planter is less maneuverable in the field so you're spending a lot more time backing up than you used to when you get into tight places. You need more room to turn around so you're making more rows around the end, but guess what, if you're making 32 or 48 rows around the end so that you have to turn around on, that's another 32 or 48 rows that you're going to spend essentially twice as much time on, once to plant them, and another time during which you are turning around on them.

The moral of the story is that the larger your machine is, the lower your efficiency is. A 1 row planter would have very close to 100% efficiency if it didn't every have to turn around and probably above 90% efficiency including turns but it can only cover 1.5 acres per hour at 5 mph. A 48 row planter is covering around 72 acres per hour at 5 mph when it's in the ground but when it's turning around on the 96 end rows (if you have to have that many to turn it around) it's getting 0 acres per hour. When it's moving between fields 3 times a day it's getting 0 acres per hour. When you're greasing the 48 rows you're getting 0 acres per hour. My guess is that they're probably averaging 50 acres an hour over a 14 hour day with all the moves and filling and greasing that they're doing. I haven't even touched on starter fertilizer and breakdowns. This means that they're probably getting around a 70% efficiency with really, is pretty good for that large of a machine. Maybe they're working longer hours and getting less efficiency or shorter hours and getting better efficiency.