COLE 2 row planter is JUNK!

I run a produce farm and i have been having trouble finding a good 2 row planter to plant sweetcorn with.. i did some research on the cole 12MX, it looked like it would work good for me so i bought a brand new one.. my seed is basically all medium flat seed, but if i use the medium flat plate, it skips terribly... like whole rows sometimes... it doesnt always pick up the seed and sometimes it wont eject it and it just goes around and around in the plate... ive tryed all the other corn plates but they either plant way to thick,or wont pick up the seed. im so frustrated and ------ because i have wasted a lot of high dollar seed, and my money is going down the drain with less than half that actually came out of the ground. all the plantings look like garbage, and for what i paid for this BRAND NEW, it should work consistent and proper! Anyone else have problems with these planters?? Im going to sell it and get what i can get out of it and look for something that actually plants and works.. im screwed for this year because the planting season is comming to an end... thanks for any feedback!
 
Most everything around my place gets planted with Deere 71 units (single unit for the garden, two-row for the field) and I find they work well. From what I can remember I've planted sweet corn, Indian corn, field corn, soybeans, green beans, peas, milo, pumpkins, cantaloupes, zinnias, onions, and probably a few I'm forgetting. Plates are very cheap and easy to find if you look in the right places. With ungraded seed the most common problem is dropping doubles but I've never had them simply not plant anything. Sweet corn seed is tough to match a plate to because it is usually very irregular - I find that a small or medium round usually works about as well as any of my several dozen different plates.
 
I've planted a fair amount of sweet corn with a JD #70(unit planter)The only reason its not dropping/skipping is the seed is too big for the cell.Either the seed wont fall into the cell,or once it is in,it wont fall out.Does your planter have 'seed knockers'? Do they work? They are needed to kick the aseed out of the cell.All sweet corn seed I have ever seen is 'varigated'(varied sizes). Just use a large round seed plate and deal with a few doubles.If you are looking for 'perfection',then you better go buy a high dollar vacume type or finger pickup.The big commercial sweet corn growers (Olathe Sweet) here all use new state of the art planters to get that perfect stand.
 
Your finding out why many plate type planters will not work very well. It is the seed size and grading. A term like medium flat means nothing form one brand of seed to another. When the majority of seed corn was planted with plate type planters they would tell you the exact seed plate to sue with each size of seed and it was many more sizes than small, medium, and large.

The better produce planters will use a vacuum meter these days. Truthfully I have always thought Cole's stuff was rather crude. It works but not real well. We hade Cole sidedressers and they where hard to get set right too.
 
I have an older Cole planter and it works fine,but you have to have the right plate for the seed.Also it works better not to run a fast ground speed.If you're missing whole rows
sounds like you might even not have the plate in the planter correctly.
 
That is my solution,
I use a John Deere 25B planter, works good, it may plant a few sweet corn doubles, but not many skips,
I have been very satisfied with its performance over the years

I believe it's a late 50's or very early 60's model
From the era when old John Deere equipment still had four feet on the deer emblem,

I still wonder who told John Deere engineers that a deer had only two legs????
 
Are you on flat ground? My experience with the inclined plate system that Cole uses is that if you go uphill, it plants light, downhill it plants heavy. If you want a brand-new planter but budget constraints limit you to a plate type, look for John Deere 71 units, which are still made new by Yetter (as far as I know.)
 
I used a 494a JD planter this year, followed the plate recommendation on the sweet corn bag, did a good job on 36 rows. Have another 20 to plant for late corn. Wondering if the plate recommendation you have is wrong.
 
I use an allis two row unit planter I made up for the three point, it works good. Don't know where you live but I would sell it.
 
I agree with JD Seller and will expand on it. You have to physically match the plate to the seed. You can't rely on the seed bag or the plate label to necessarily match.

I have no experience with the Cole planter but know guys that use them and get great results.

My planter is a IH Farmall C-251 with fast hitch. It took several years to acquire the plates and knowledge to make it put up a good stand. My seed varies every year from flats to rounds of all sizes. I now visually match the seed to plate and "plant" the driveway. That shows me how the combination is working before I ever put it in the ground.
 
Watch this. He had problems where he had the plate too tight. Also a buildup of paint at the bottom of the hopper can cause problems as well. Are the press wheels sliding?

I agree that the palte has to match and the JD or IH are superior, but it may be a simple fix before you take a loss.

https://youtu.be/0yj58hRSjfA
 

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