grain drill ?

[Anonymous-0]

I have been told to try to find a cup style grain drill instead of a fluted type grain drill for planting soybeans. Is this true? I was told that the fluted type will crush every so many bean seeds. Are there many cup style drills out there. It seems that every drill I look at is the fluted type. Thanks for any advice.

 

[jack harmon]

you may try to find a old single run drill,(old),dont know but ive heard they were not as bad to break larger seeds.ive never tried planting soybeans but ive heard that.

 

[Anonymous-0]

A planter treats beans better than a drill. The flutes will crush. I planted corn once with a fluted drill and it crushed about 2% according to my tests while calibrating it.

A planter with bean cups spills without much control and with bean seed at $45 a sack, uncontrolled spills are not good. A JD 7000 planter with Kinze bean units counts beans carefully and spaces them evenly in the row.

You might crush fewer beans with a flute drill, if the beans are small, like 3000 to the pound. But you can't always have a choice in seed size in the variety you want.

Gerald J.

 

[Mike Aylward]

Young, a fluted cup drill will plant beans just fine. Too many people try to run them with the gates in the tightest setting. Put the gates in a medium setting and then close down the sliding adjustment and you will get along just fine. While it is granted that a drill will not space soybeans like a planter will a soybean does not overly care about this like a corn plant does. A bean will compensate both ways for this. I have planted beans in wide rows, 30" rows, 15" rows and in a drilled configuration. Do not fear a fluted feed drill. They have been used with success for years. Mike

 

[thurlow]

Exactly! Anybody else remember 'York' soybeans? They were a group '5', so probably no one North of the Mid-South planted them; they were almost as large as the end of your little finger, so we'd have to open up the gate from the middle setting to the largest setting to make them feed right. We always looked at number of seed per foot, rather than lbs. per acre (which most folks around 'here' did), because of the variation in sizes.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Yes, a cup or more often called a single/double run feed is more gentle on the seeds and meters them more accurately than a fluted feed. The single/double run feeds require some type of transmission so are more expensive than fluted feed, therefore are rarely if ever found in modern drills. Surprisingly I found/bought a JD 520 with a double run feed, all others I've seen were fluted feed. You can replace the fluted feed with an SI belt which would give better population control and avoid seed damage, but this is not inexpensive. I personally don't believe planting soybeans justifies using a expensive planter, unless one is trying very low populations and need to save every seed. Depth control and spacing is not as critical with beans, and there are a lot of good, less expensive drills available

 

[Anonymous-0]

Although I prefer double run, fluted feed still works well. Last year I planted approx 20 acres with the smaller IH 620 which has fluted feed rather than the JD520. The JD was too wide for the field entrance. Planned for 160,000 but actually sowed slightly less than 140,000 with the 7 inch spacing. Haven't drilled many beans with the 620 so set it according to the chart and hoped for the best. They came out great, so apparently not too many seed beans were damaged by the feed mechanism. It is a slightly sandy soil, so crusting is not a major issue. The JD is set for 15 inch rows which I believe provides the desired enhanced early canopy while also providing some additional safety if crusting becomes a problem (more beans closer together pushing). However as stated earlier, if I was aiming for low rates; eg 90,000 or so, I would definitely go with a 30 inch spacing for the crusting issue and consequently use a planter.