Anybody ever use a cultivator to make rows for planting?

I know. Odd time of year to be thinking about it. But here's why.

I have a lot of time to think, as I'm putting manure on our sweet corn patch this fall. The manure is the first step to turning things around from last season...which was a complete bust. Between lack of nutrients and a record wet summer/fall... no bueno.

But anyway, one of the problems this year is that I didn't get the corn cultivated soon enough. That is already solved for next year, as I bought an old set of John Deere cultivators and repurposed them them to hook onto my Ford 3000's three point hitch. They are lubricated and stored for the winter. Ready to go at a moment's notice next year.

The second problem was nitrogen... hence... lots and lots of manure going on this fall to be tilled in next spring.

The third problem was germination. I borrowed a White 5400 Plant-air Planter from a neighbor, who uses it for deer food plots.

There are a few problems with this. The hoppers are setup to be loaded with 50lb bags of seed corn for planting acres and acres of corn. When you put a few pounds of sweet corn seed in, you have to cover it with a rag and a weight to make sure that the planting rig stays pressurized. Even with that, only two rows of the four planted very well last year. I have a short time window to borrow this planter and not much time to troubleshoot it. (As an aside, its owner also had the same problem). I don't mind fixing something for a friend who lets me borrow something, and maybe I can figure this out over the winter... since I store the planter in our hayloft for him.

But here is the question:

Can I get double duty out of our cultivator? Would I be able to put sweeps on it that are designed to make a small furrow for dropping seed into?

If I could, I wouldn't mind spending maybe 100 bucks on one of those seed meter setups with a wheel that you walk behind to drop seeds.

Yes... I know... labor intensive. But at least I would SEE the seed dropping every six inches (or whatever) and not have to wait a week or two before realizing that the planter only planted less than half of the plot... by which time I'm screwed.

It seems that using the cultivator for making the planting rows would set the rows up perfectly for the same cultivator to then go between them.

It also seems that, if I paid more attention to micro-managing the plot with nutrients, getting the proper seeding and cultivating, I bet that I would be able to get the same amount of sweet corn on about a third of the ground that I tried to do this year.

Sounds like you want to make a lister planter but I would recommend getting your own corn planter. I personally use a John Deere 494A and
have had great results. It has plates that drop the seed into the ground and runners instead of disc openers. By itself it is heavy enough
to put seed in the ground with only a handful of seed in the hopper. I picked mine up at an auction for $300.00 and see them on craigslist
all the time.
This summer was very dry but even with what little rain we got I had enough corn for the neighborhood to eat and can as well as some churches
pick two pick up trucks full for homeless shelters.
Good Luck

(quoted from post at 09:30:57 11/25/19) Sounds like you want to make a lister planter but I would recommend getting your own corn planter. I personally use a John Deere 494A and
have had great results. It has plates that drop the seed into the ground and runners instead of disc openers. By itself it is heavy enough
to put seed in the ground with only a handful of seed in the hopper. I picked mine up at an auction for $300.00 and see them on craigslist
all the time.
This summer was very dry but even with what little rain we got I had enough corn for the neighborhood to eat and can as well as some churches
pick two pick up trucks full for homeless shelters.
Good Luck

Click to expand...

That's great a great result.

Also, the White Planter is plenty heavy enough. What the weight is for is to keep the air from coming out of the seed planting rig below each hopper. The "Plant-aire" uses compressed air from a fan mounted on each hopper to pressurize the planting wheel. My understanding is that the air pressure pushes the seeds against the plates better for more uniform seeding.

This was a common method for large-acreage planters across brands.

Problem is, these planters depend on the seed hoppers being filled with a certain amount of seed to keep the air pressure in the planter below. If you put in five pounds of sweet corn seed, it doesn't even fill the tube below the hopper. When the fan turns on, the seed blows around like popcorn in an air popper... not good for planting. I've read that you can remedy that by putting a rag over the top of the see with a small weight to make sure the air can't get out, sort of like plugging a drain.

Even so, it's not a very good way to plant small amounts of seed corn. Last year, we planted about twenty-five pounds of sweet corn, split between two varieties. We also planted about ten pounds of "Earth Tones", an heirloom grain corn.

When you do the math, that meant loading the four hoppers with about three to four pounds of seed... which barely gives the enough to work with.

I feel as though I'm at an in between acreage. Too small for this four-row "industrial" planter. Too large to open the rows with a hoe and cultivate with a rototiller.

Yes. I do on a regular basis. I 'premark' my irrigated fields. I will often preirrigate. Then just before planting I will run a duckfoot down the top of the bed. Right where the planter runner gose. Wipes out all the weeds in the row. Gives the new baby plants a head start on the weeds.Makes a huge difference you can see all summer. Especially important in NONgmo/non roundup ready crops.

I have wrestled with the same problems with pop corn. Your cultivator is a great idea for making furrows properly spaced for later cultivation. I have used the walk behind planter and they work OK, but you must have the proper plates. I did not buy a popcorn plate and that was a mistake. They have a chain drag to cover the seed and it is so-so at it. The drag is fine for small seeds but a bit too light for corn. I think you should watch the local auctions or check Craigslist for an old 2 row 3 point corn planter. I see them on the internet for $150 to $500. They sell for peanuts at auctions. In my youth I planted dozens of acres with one. Very simple and easy to adjust row spacing and depth. Another point. For proper pollination the field should have width. 6 short rows will pollinate much better than 2 long rows.

Do you have a heavy disc to cut in the manure? If not the clumps can make planting difficult. If you have any corn left over send some my way. I once got a box full of Iowa sweet corn delivered to my front door by Fed-Ex ...sent from an Iowa hunting buddy!

Another neighbor, that we bale hay for, has a seven foot tiller that I borrow. I had about a foot of manure on our garden last year, and it turned that into potting soil. The sweet corn was down the road a ways and didn't get the manure treatment. You can bet that it is this year.

Tilling won't be an issue. The more manure I put down, the better the seed bed will be, with that tiller cutting it up.

We did take the advice about row numbers. We planted a minimum of 16 rows of each variety to get good pollination.

I would rather drive the sweet corn down to you on the way to Nashville.

And Delta, that's a good point about the cultivator giving the row that final sweep for weeds before planting. The big planters just use discs to knife the see in. The discs don't undercut any weed roots in the planting zone like a pass with the cultivator would.

Very common years ago to mark rows with a planter or cultivator, in the garden. I don"t understand the rag in the seed box thing- Not unusual for farmers to run the seed level low.

With the pressurization system in this particular planter. You'll get spotty seeding if the corn gets low enough to let the air escape into the hopper. Seed that's blowing around the hopper isn't going down into the drill.

"Low" is a relative term. If you start with a 50 pound bag of seed, 5 pounds is very low. I was essentially starting with less than 5 pounds.

Cowboy,Look into an older plate type planter.Simple and trouble free.They will plant a very small amount of seed.They do a good job with the correct plate and graded/sized seed. However sweet corn is 'varigated'. So you need to use a 'medium round' sized plate.Good enough for a sweet corn plot.Myself,I use a JD #71 unit planter

Lastcowboy32, I have planted as little as 4oz. of seed at a time with a jd7000 notil finger pickup planter. Wasn't sure it would do it, but with a seed monitor we got off ebay, it worked fine. The monitor left me know when it ran out as you couldn't see the seed in the boxes. I did that for an experiment with open pollinated indian corn and some popcorn. I also use it to plant our little patch of sweet corn (a 2 row would be nicer for that). Paul

I planted a few pounds for a neighbor
years ago with my 333 allis planter, same
air set-up, but just used one box and
made a pass then moved over one row and
made another pass repeated that till was
done and it turned out great! Monitor
wasn't happy! Lol

I used one to make rows after the corn came up one year. I rented some ground where the last renter didn't pick until spring. There was so much volunteer corn that you couldn't even see the rows.

(quoted from post at 04:46:53 11/27/19) I planted a few pounds for a neighbor
years ago with my 333 allis planter, same
air set-up, but just used one box and
made a pass then moved over one row and
made another pass repeated that till was
done and it turned out great! Monitor
wasn't happy! Lol

Click to expand...

That would be great for a very small patch. If I did this, though, I would have to figure out how I would space the single rows just the perfect width to use the cultivator later.

Otherwise, the inexact row spacing would relegate me to cultivation by hand or with a walk-behind tiller.

For that small amount of seed I'd be using a Cole planter,some areas they are common some areas none around.Lots of plates available for different seeds.Also if you have a large garden tractor a Brinly planter works really well for your scale of operation.I plant a couple rows of sweet corn in the garden just like you described making the rows with a small middle buster and then using a Garden Way seeder to drop the corn,I generally run 2X in the same row with the seeder as it spaces the corn out too much for what I want.As far as plant nutrition go to Countryside Organics for some great products.Planters II and Sea 90 I use a lot.

Yep 👍🏿 broccoli and others garlic 🧄

I use my C tine cultivator for making and maintaining all my rows and I made a deep furrower for the center for my tater planting
been working fine for the last four or five years.
For planting corn and other stuff use a walk behind seeder an
Earthway with many different sized plates, still droppin seed
taters by hand but my operation is small and the budget is tight

You're doing exactly what I was thinking about.

I just think that I might need to put different sweeps on for digging rows.

It's a John Deere cultivator; so I'm sure that different sweeps are probably still available brand new.

You've even given me another idea. I wasn't even thinking about potatoes... but I bet that I could set the depth and sweep to dig the rows... and also make different settings a few weeks later for hilling... and if I play my cards right... I might even be able to "dig" them with the same rig. Although, for digging, it would be easy to borrow a little three point rig that my brother has made for that purpose out of a TSC middle buster.

This leads me to further define my question:

What sweep would be best to, say, make a furrow for dropping corn seed into?

This is one side of a front mounted 2-row cultivator with a tool bar and center arm mounting point added.

I use this to lay off rows for garden planting. I have the row spacing set the same as the 2-row cultivator on my Farmall C.

(quoted from post at 19:00:29 11/27/19)
<img src="https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cvphotos/cvphoto43007.jpg">

This is one side of a front mounted 2-row cultivator with a tool bar and center arm mounting point added.

Click to expand...

Thanks. That makes sense.

(quoted from post at 15:18:45 11/27/19)
You're doing exactly what I was thinking about.

I just think that I might need to put different sweeps on for digging rows.

It's a John Deere cultivator; so I'm sure that different sweeps are probably still available brand new.

You've even given me another idea. I wasn't even thinking about potatoes... but I bet that I could set the depth and sweep to dig the rows... and also make different settings a few weeks later for hilling... and if I play my cards right... I might even be able to "dig" them with the same rig. Although, for digging, it would be easy to borrow a little three point rig that my brother has made for that purpose out of a TSC middle buster.

Click to expand...

I use my middle buster for diggin up taters, gonna make a couple right and left turn over sweeps fer hillin taters this winter, with all the holes to mount tooling the possibilities are limited only by yer imagination.......... :idea:

I used to raise squash and pumpkins. Took all but the outside tines off a 1 row cultivator
and used it to make rows. Then hand planted (that was a long walk for 10 acres, but I was
20 not 50 lol)

We always pre mark potato rows the fall before next
years crop .

This marks two five row potato beds in one pass

Kids use our ih c144 to make out asparagus rows , works good , never dreamed we ever use the again , glad we got them

I do that for my garden every year. I cut 4 pieces of 2x4 about 12" long. Cut one end to make a point. I bolted them to a 14' 2x4 at 36" intervals so that I could attach the 2x4 across the rear shanks of my 4 row spring shank cultivator. Shift the 2x4 so that the wooden v's are centered in the rows. I just wire the 2x4 to the shanks, passing the wire through the holes in the shovels so it won't ride up. I make up rows with multiple passes of the cultivator. Beauty is that all rows have a nice furrow in the center. Just drop in the seeds, backfill the furrow. With a little practice, you can remove the 2x4 and cover the seeds with the cultivator. Dad made one of these about 50 years ago. I made mine 30 years ago and put it up in the barn when not in use. Been using the same one every year since. Used treated wood.