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Rivers, MB | I'm assuming you are meaning that the airseeder has harrows and an airdrill has the mounted packers. We bought an airseeder (Morris Concept 2000) in 1997 when we were making the switch to zero/min till. We ran it till 2003. Then traded it on a Morris Maxim air drill. We have liked going to an airdrill for a number of reasons but the main thing is that you have the on-row packing. Many guys that have an air-seeder are either pulling a packer behind or are harrowpacking behind the air seeder. I think in a very dry year, not having the on-row packing would be a big concern with seed-soil contact being not as good as with an air-drill. I think the depth control is somewhat better on an airdrill and would be much better if you go to a parallel link drill (SeedHawk, Seedmaster, Morris contour master, or Bourgault para-link).
The only time where I have wished that we had an airseeder was in an extremely wet spring. If you are trying to seed in really wet soil, the harrows on airseeder covered up the seed sufficiently while still allowing you to travel in the mud. An air drill will typically have more trouble in mud. Having said that, we did use our air drill in the spring of 2005 which was really wet and we had excellent germination. I have been surprised as to how wet we can seed in using the air drill.
Air drills are typically more expensive for the same number of feet and will probably have a better resale because the industry seems to be moving away from air seeders.
One way to try would be to buy an airseeder that has the option of switching between packers and harrows. Our Concept 2000 had that option. However, we felt that the plastic packers that came with it weren't heavy enough to do a good job of packing. Bourgault makes something that would do this. I think it is an 8800. The JD airseeders with harrow/packer option is a nice unit. My cousin has one and they have good packers. The model # for those would be an 1810 (1820, 1830) or the older model of that style of drill was an 737 (I think?).
Hope that helps
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Air seeder and Air drill pros and cons
