Getting Ready for Spring

In February and March we start getting excited about planting, and that means getting the planters out of the machine shed and into the shop for maintenance and upgrades. Pictured above is our Case IH Early Riser planter that we use for soybeans. It plants 24 rows at once with a spacing of 20 inches between each row.

Several years ago we installed Precision Planting’s CleanSweep row cleaners on our soybean planter. Since we no-till and rotate between soybeans and corn, that means that we are planting soybeans into last year’s corn stalks and leaves. There are many benefits to this residue, but it can be a hassle during planting because it is laying or standing between the planter and the soil. The CleanSweep system sits on the front of each row unit and sweeps away the residue just enough so the rest of the unit behind it can interact with the soil without bouncing over stalks or plugging with leaves.

This winter we upgraded our Case IH corn planter (pictured below) by adding Precision Planting’s DeltaForce and vSet. DeltaForce hydraulically controls the downforce on each individual row unit so that every seed gets planted at the proper depth regardless of the varying soil densities that might exist across the width of the planter. Uniform depth of planting ensures that seeds emerge from the ground at the same time.

Whereas DeltaForce controls depth, vSet is a seed meter that is designed to improve the accuracy of spacing between each seed horizontally in the row as the planter moves forward. There should be equal spacing between each seed as you go along, as opposed to two seeds closer together and the next seed further ahead.

We expect DeltaForce and vSet to help our planter give every seed an even better chance of achieving its maximum yield potential.