Converting Seed Planter to No-Till?

Greetings!

I have recently started a pumpkin patch on approximately 2 acres. I am wanting to go with no-till methods to preserve organic material, protect topsoil, and promote cleaner fruit.

I have seeded a rye/vetch cover crop and am now looking ahead to the planting - but what unit to purchase?

I am looking to purchase a one-row planter. I need for it to be reliable, adaptable to multiple seeds (at the very least pumpkin!) , and preferably have a fertilizer hopper onboard.

Here is my issue: crops are not a giant agricultural resource in my area (mainly small hay and cattle operations), so I don't have a large pool of local knowledge to draw from.

So far, I am interested in the Cole MX12 Planter. It seems like it would mostly fit my needs.

However, all images show it on a thoroughly prepared seedbed.



My questions:

Is this a reliable unit?

My understanding is that I can purchase pumpkin seed plates, or modify seed plates for it relatively easily?

Is it possible to mount coulters ahead of the unit, creating the no-till use I desire? I will be planting through a (possibly substantial) cover crop that has been rolled down.

Again, I apologize for my ignorance, this type of equipment is only seen in passing around these parts.

Thanks for your time and advice.

Light sandy or muck type of ground? Heavy heavy clay ground? Big difference in what will work.

You need to find someone who has cut down a JD 7000
planter. From what I hear that is a popular thing to do. If you
could find a planter unit from a 7000 you would be able to buy
Yetter finger sweeps for it. Down pressure is going to be the
biggest issue when going through a lot of trash in the field.
When folks use a 7000 in those conditions they put stronger
springs in it to get down in. My 1750 no till planter uses air
bags to get the pressure to the units, but I don't know if that
kind of thing exists for single row planters. Plan on using a
heavy down spring to provide the pressure. If you have Amish
in your area it is possible they know of someone that has cut
down a 6 row 7000 for a team of horses.

Soil tests label the type as clay, but it isn't a heavy heavy clay.

As a first year concession, I'm willing to till up compacted areas once if needed since they've only been hay and pasture for many years - but I'd prefer not to.

I hope this information helps.

We don't do notill on my heavy wet cold clay soil.

My understanding of notill, you need some cleaners up front
(coulters are out of style, seems they create a trench with
straw pin wheeled in the trench, poor seed to soil contact...)
and a good set of disk openers with depth gauge wheels by
the disk, then ESP in clay a toothed or metal claw type set of
closing wheels that pushes the seed trench closed from each
side with teeth to it, not smear over the top.

In short, every part the exact opposite of what that Cole
planter is.

But - remember I don't have any experience with notill, only
what I read. I also understand the exact set of coulters, row
cleaners, and closing wheels depends very much on your soil
type and typical wet or dryness. A loam or sand soil that tends
to be dry works well. The more clay, and wetter, the more
attention to detail you need.

Paul

Here would be a pic of what makes a good notill planter near me, where there is a little less clay.

Up front is a disk blade to put fertilizer on about 2 inches to the side. This somewhat helps cut and clear the ground. They have a depth control wheel on the fert opener, that isn't so needed.

Next are the row cleaners, those angled toothed wheels. They push trash out of the way and lumps and such. They really should not till the ground, just brush it free.

Then come the disk blades that cut the seed trench, a shoe like your planter won't work well in notill, the disk blade type openers will work much better.

The disk openers have a rubber depth wheel right tight up beside them, to control seed depth very accurately. That flat plate on your planter serves as the depth control. I don't know how that would work in notill, if it will control the depth properly....

. Notill ground can be quite firm and hard, so you often need a fairly heavy planter with enough wight to force down into the dirt. ESP clay soil. A heavy frame, with springs on the row unit to transfer the weight to the row unit works well. That way in wet or sandy areas, the row unit doesn't weigh too much, in hard ground the springs pull it in.

Because your soil will be a bit rough in notill, these depth wheels are important, and need to be located right where the disk openers are, not a foot or two behind as on most older planters

Behind the disk openers is another set of metal toothed wheels, they close the seed trench by collapsing the trench in at an angle. Since notill ground can be hard, and there is no loose dirt most of the time, these wheels need to have some weight on them, and need to cut in a tad to create a closed trench - but you don't want the weight directly down from above like the planter you pictured. In notill you need the ground pinched in from the side. There are a dozen different ideas on the type of toothed closing wheel metal and rubber designs, and combinations of one side smooth, one side toothed to match the many different types of soil best.

Behind that is a drag chain, this levels out the small amount of loose dirt created and fills in any openings in the seed trench to cover all the seed.

Now. Your planter might work, but it pretty much looks exactly designed to work in smooth, loose, dry dirt, with everything totally wrong for notill.

And clearly, we can get carried away with your needs for your acres vs a several thousand acre farmer..... But this is just the hard core way notill is done, you make the compromises and adjustments for what you need to make work on your scale.

There are good JD units starting with the 7000, and good Case IH units starting with the 800 model, and good White (Allis Chalmers and New Idea heritage) planter units.

Others can be modified to work on a smaller scale, but you really want to start with good depth control and good disk openers for a start.

Paul

If you need to roll the cover crop, consider rolling after planting.

Any cover crop that is standing vertical makes easier planting
because the planter doesn't have to cut the stems.

Bubbleboy78,
We did something similar last year with a rolled cover crop, ours was straight rye. Soil is a silty loam. We've used the cole planter you've picked out, but only in prepared soil, we were thinking about modifing one of ours with no-till openers and closers or to be more exact placing the seed drop onto a no-till corn planter row unit, but time was against us. We needed to come up with a no-till setup so we mounted a wavy disc on our water wheel for planting on plastic and dropped seeds by hand, not the best setup, but it was the quickest to setup to get the job done.
It did yield some very clean pumpkins. After we rolled the cover down we gave it a hit of glyphosate to knock out anything that was green, then planted. Still had some weeds, but it was minimal compared to convential tillage pumpkins we've done before.

I have no experience with no till planting and I suggest you call Cole with your questions about no till. However, I have one of those planters which was made for horses, which tells you how old it is. Cole later modified the design to mount on 3ph tractors, aimed at gardners. They also made a complete line of tractor planters. I had a 2 row set of them also at one time. I can say that Cole planters are reliable. Cole started with planters at an early date. My father bought one new, for $45, in the 1930s, which differs from the one pictured mainly in the design of the plates. Early ones dropped the seed out the bottom, the one pictured has a different plate and mechanism which carries the seed near the top of the hopper and then drops it.

Another old design is Covington planters, and the two companies have merged quite a few years ago.

I have seen Chinese copies of the Cole planter.

KEH

Bubbleboy,

I used a planter similar to the Cole pictured. It
appears to be a "runner" planter- meaning that it
has a flat plate on the bottom with a rounded shape
on the bottom which creates a seed furrow below the
flattened area left by the plate and drops the seed
in. The biggest problem that I had with that type
of planter is that the seed drop opening would
easily plug if the soil was at all damp or sticky.
That backs up the seeds in the drop tube and creates
a skip in the row. I bought a cut down AC no till
corn planter and set it up to use with my Farmall
140. I am not using the no till bar and coulters,as
I don't have a crimper to roll a cover crop. The
suggestion that someone made to plant first and then
roll or crimp the cover crop sounds like a good
idea. The early no till corn planters like I have
depend on a semi prepared or low residue surface. I
know that my older no till Coulter setup would not
cut through a rolled or matted cover crop.

I believe that you would should find a disc opener plate type corn planter rather than try to convert a Cole planter to no till. You can add a no till tool bar and Coulters easily to these unit planters if desired. Lincoln Ag has seed plates for IH, AC, Deere and more types of corn planters. They even offer blank plastic seed plates which you can custom
Cut for a particular seed.