White 5400 Corn Planter operated with low seed volume.

lastcowboy32

Well-known Member
The 5400 is called a "Plant Aire" by White; since it uses blowers on the seed hoppers.

I borrowed one from a friend of mine, who bought it to do food plots for deer.

I wanted to use it for a couple of acres of sweet corn.

When I first borrowed it, it still had some of his "deer corn" in it.

I decided to test it, by running the deer corn into some ground that was going to get tilled later.

Anyway, what I noticed was that the seed started blowing around in the hopper, once the hopper was empty and only seed that remained was down in the plastic wheel (for lack of a better term).

So, that gave me a conundrum. The lady that sold us the seed told us to plant 6 varieties of sweet corn to have a smooth progression of maturation.

That meant that I only had about 5 pounds of each type of seed. Not really enough to even put a dent in the hopper.

I was concerned that it would start blowing around, instead of planting... So... what I did was to use a measuring cup to put an equal amount of seed into all four hoppers of the empty planter.

By the time I finished my first bag of seed, the seed was all down in the pipe, not even showing in the hopper.

So then I measured equal amounts of my next variety and added...

Still not quite in the hopper.

So I did the same with the third variety.

No I was working in the hopper.

Then I would plant a couple of passes and check the hopper...when the seed level was just below the bottom of the hopper and showing in the pipe... I added equal amounts of the next variety.

Did that for varieties 4, 5, and 6.

I still had some land left, so I put black oil sunflower on top of the remaining corn seed and just finished planting the rest of the corn...and then sunflower until I ran out of land.


It was tedious...is there a better way?

Was I right to be concerned about when the seed starts blowing around in the hopper? Did I actually always need to keep enough in there to prevent that?
 
I take it you don't have a monitor hooked up, the regular monitor was standard equipment, with a seed counting one as optional. Air pressure holds the seed against the disc until it passes the cutoff brush. If your brushes. seal shims, and lids are in good condition it will plant till there is teacup or less seed. If you don't have an operators manual, you may still be able to order one from an AGCO dealer, if they don't try a New Holland dealer for a manual for a Ford 354 planter which is a 5400 with blue paint and round seed hoppers.
 
(quoted from post at 11:32:50 06/18/18) I take it you don't have a monitor hooked up, the regular monitor was standard equipment, with a seed counting one as optional. Air pressure holds the seed against the disc until it passes the cutoff brush. If your brushes. seal shims, and lids are in good condition it will plant till there is teacup or less seed. If you don't have an operators manual, you may still be able to order one from an AGCO dealer, if they don't try a New Holland dealer for a manual for a Ford 354 planter which is a 5400 with blue paint and round seed hoppers.

The monitor isn't hooked up. The planter was purchased used by my friend, from a farmer. The farmer had cut all of the wires to the control unit, except for two... Power and ground...

He told my friend.... give it power, turn on the fans...and plant.

We do have a manual. I'm running behind this year (long story, suffice to say, I didn't know my friend had a corn planter and that I was going to have the land available for sweet corn until about two weeks ago)

This year, I got the seeds in the ground...but... I want to figure this thing out for next year.

For instance, I just went to the Agco dealer and looked over some parts diagrams. My friend wanted to see if we could get the "fertilizer" hoppers working. Turns out, they're herbicide hoppers...
 
I had one of these and used it for years. The seeds do blow around some doesn't seem to matter. The moniter lied to me so many times I quite using it. It actually was a very reliable planter and worked very well. Might even have been the same unit as I sold it a couple years ago.
 
Link to free on line parts book. http://www.agcopartsbooks.com/PartsBooksN/Viewer/book.aspx?book=agco/w438207
 
(quoted from post at 18:26:19 06/18/18) Link to free on line parts book. http://www.agcopartsbooks.com/PartsBooksN/Viewer/book.aspx?book=agco/w438207

The planter DOES seem reliable. It's putting seeds in the ground.

I'm just trying to figure out if there is a better way of handling low volumes of seed.

This is our first year selling sweet corn. Maybe we'll sell out, and it will be a moot point. We'll just use more seed next year :)
 
I don't think you got the results you were looking for. I've changed seed color by pouring more on top and I got mixed colors for quite a while and sooner than I would have thought.
 
By the way,you are running it with the hopper covers on aren't you? They air pressure will hold the seed in place better if they're on there.
 
(quoted from post at 16:45:15 06/19/18) By the way,you are running it with the hopper covers on aren't you? They air pressure will hold the seed in place better if they're on there.

Yes, the hopper covers were on.

It's going to be interesting picking the sweet corn, if the types got mixed too much.
 
The last time I planted sweet corn with my White planter I followed a friends advice and poured a small amount of seed into each hopper and then placed an old towel or rag over the seed
corn. I then placed a brick on top of the towel. This kept the seed down into the very bottom of the hopper and seemed to work well for me.
 

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