As always, these are just the opinions of one aged, bald-headed mechanic in the middle of nowhere.
Having said that…I was reminded again this week of how variations in modern seed corn kernels can affect planting accuracy. We were running seed meters on a test stand, and couldn’t get them to plant worth a darn.
Long story short, the bag-run sample of seed the customer provided was like sweepings off the floor at the local co-op’s dump pit during harvest. A palmful of seeds had everything from small flats to medium rounds to odd-shaped seeds that I couldn’t categorize.
We eventually upgraded the planter’s seed meters to a design that more easily handles irregular seed, and the meters then consistently ran at 99.6 percent or better from then on.
So as you prep for spring, consider the grading and consistency of the seeds you’ll plant. It’s not the fault of a particular seed corn company--the entire industry has different grading standards than they did 20 years ago. Just be aware that it may take careful attention and significant tweaking of seed meters to get optimum planting performance.
