Planter maintenance experts encourage due diligence when inspecting and calibrating the seed metering units. It’s important to have those components locked in to begin with. The more acres the planter goes over, the more things can tend to work themselves out of alignment.
Great Plains Manufacturing product specialist Doug Jennings advises his farmer customers to spend ample time ensuring seed meters are working properly.
“And then, whether you have speed tubes or seed tubes, however the planter is set up, be sure that seed delivery mechanism isn’t damaged on the bottom,” Jennings adds. “A lot of times we see those speed tubes come in contact with the blade and it creates an edge on the plastic. That causes the seed to ricochet.”
At Kinze, Niensteadt points out the preliminary test stand and stationary test modes for seed meters offered in the companies’ Blue Vantage and Blue Drive machines. Running through those modules when you have the planter in the farm shop is a wise choice, he says.
“You can do test stands sitting in your shop at the farm. Put some seed in, run a Test Stand mode on our electronics and you get a feel for how that meter is performing without ever leaving the farm,” Niedsteadt says. “You really get a picture and snapshot of what’s going to happen in the field.
“You can choose your speed and put different hybrids in and different populations and see how that meter reacts, and make different adjustments and see how it reacts,” he adds. “That’s definitely the advantage of having a higher technology machine, having that capability.”
Clay Scott is a product support specialist at Precision Planting. He wants to make sure farmers know what to do when making a crop switch. Downtime during planting can be costly, so getting setup when going from corn to soybeans needs to be seamless.
“We may need to change transmission settings, seed discs, vacuum settings, singulators and brush settings, depending on meter type,” he says. “Additionally, it is important to calibrate depth again as soybeans are often planted shallower than corn crop.”
