John Deere 7000 planter - which no-till coulter is the best

andy r

Member
I run a modified John Deere 7000 6 row planter with 5 interplant units on it. This lets me plant 11 - 15 inch soybean rows. The planter is dedicated to soybeans only. When I sat the planter up I used the frame mounted no-till coulters rather than the individual row unit coulters. Alot of the earlier 7000's had this kind of no-till coulters. They work fine, but sometimes I feel I would like them to cut through the residue a little better. Once in awhile I see some hairpinning of the corn stalks as the double disk opener passes over and some soybeans being planted too shallow or not covered. This problem is rare and soybeans are pretty forgiving. With good rains you wouldn't even realize you have a problem.

Do any of the no-till coulters have superior penetration through the trash and into the soil? I have 13 wave coulters now. Other options are 1) bubble coulters 2) 8 wave coulters 3) 25 wave coulters. Am I missing any type of coulter that might work better??

Friend of mine in the machinery business who also farms sharpens his no-till coulters with a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder. Maybe that would help. I do not want to put any more weight on the planter to assist in penetration since the planter is pretty heavy already with 11 units attached.

If soil/trash conditions get really hard I fill the insecticide hoppers with shelled corn to make sure the double disk openers can do their job better. So, the planter basically does its job well, but I was thinking maybe different coulters could be better. Thanks.
 
You probably have the best option right now. Sometimes when the residue is a little ropey you just can't cut through it. Time to wait for better conditions. I know you are already set up, but the colters mounted to the unit follow the ground better.
 
Andy,

For months now, I have been researching various no-till set-ups to convert my JD 7000 to no-till. I talked to a few reps from Precision Planting last winter at a corn planter clinic. The discussion of hair pinning trash was pretty lengthy. The use of no-till coulters was an hour long tutorial with high speed camera footage of planters at work in super slow motion. I'll condense what I have learned and what is being taught right now.

No-till coulters were a break through in their day, but have been found to be a poor option compared to heavy duty down pressure units using air or hydraulic pistons that run independently on each row coupled with heavy duty disk openers.

It's a huge expense for the system, so I will skip that discussion. From what I have learned, the best thing for hair-pinning is the yetter or martin floating row cleaners. The best system is the air or hydraulic operated ones, but again... big money. Instead, for a lower budget system, they make an aluminum gauge wheel for the row cleaners to be used in the float position.

That is the system I am going with. It is relatively cheap compared to the air or hydraulic options. I don't know how you have that many row units squeezed on the tool bar, but would be curious to see, if you had any pictures. I was very surprised at how well the system works. I got to see it in person in May. Virtually not a skip or double or misplaced seed in corn stubble with corn on corn and soybeans on corn and corn on soybeans.

The other biggie is the keeton seed firmer. It really makes a difference.


What I have now is a jd 7000 with keeton seed firmers, and rubber closing wheels. I will be switching to heavy duty openers($47.90 a row from shoup), heavy duty v-slicers, shlagel closing wheels, and the yetter short titan row cleaners with shark tooth, and aluminum floaters.

You could leave your no-till coulters on the frame and still have room for the row cleaners. But, I do highly recommend them after seeing for myself how incredible they work.
 
I have heard the same - throw the coulters away, put springs
and floating row cleaners on.

His problem might be the narrow rows, the hind cleaners might
throw trash on the front rows? I believe the companies you
mentioned or Dawn make a narrow or single cleaner for such
situations.

My 7000 came with 5 giant spring teeth, like harrow teeth on a
field cultivator, as a sweep for each row.

Never saw such a thing before. Since I'm full tillage mostly,
they actually work for me. I'm told they were a Deere option.

I'm told not to use the seed firmers in my wet yellow clay soils,
it drags the seed. I've no experience but notice planters for
sale in my neighborhood don't have them....

Another thing is closing wheels, in firn notil soils a combination
of toothed closing wheels might cover better.

Not ever around here, but in different soils I hear drag chains
are also popular or have their nitch.

Paul
 
I have a lot of yellow clay soils. Lots of it is slicker than dog snot on a door knob. I have not had problems with dragging seed. Now that you mentioned it, I will have to check next year to see if I can find any evidence of it in some of my worst clay fields.

Here's a picture of the pipeline ditch they dug this past summer. It was raining for days when I took the photo, hence the darker color. The Presby church in Burgettstown was built from bricks made from clay in the valley ridge above me. Looks good if you want to make bricks!

rootpitt2014_zps0a3d1267.png




EDIT: and I do intend on using drag chains! They seem to work good with the schlagel closers.
 
I run an 8 row Kinze for my corn. About 50% of the time I have ran the coulters and 50% of the time I have taken them off. I have found if planting conditions are not the best (wet spring and can't wait) then it plants best without the coulters. Dry and crumbly coulters are OK. If the soil is a little on the wet side the no-till coulter can pull soil out of the planting zone and sort of make a slot. Coulters do add life to the double disk openers. Nothing compares to good diameter and sharp double disk openers. I do have a set of trash whippers for this planter as well. Again, if it is a little wet they tend to "plow". They are rigid to the planting unit and do not float. Maybe a dry spring and I will use those alone. Probably the two most important things for seed emergence and a uniform stand are 1) making sure the double disk openers are consistantly cutting the proper depth and 2) planting at slower speeds. I put the new style Kinze down pressure springs on the planter last spring and wow what an improvement. I forget how many pounds of down pressure these will transfer, but enough that it can tend to lift the planter up. Fortunately I have dry fertilizer so the planter is heavy.

Much of the add - on equipment do two things. 1) allows you to plant in less desireable conditions, and 2) plant at higher speeds. It costs alot of money to fully equip a planter. If you are a smaller or mid size farmer maybe just waiting for soil conditions to improve or planting at 4 mph is good enough.
 
Forget the counters and put on all new seed disk openers. Spend the extra money and put the Deere brand on they are made heavier. The counters have very little to do with your planting. Where we run in southern is heavy red clay and we run our coulters higher that the book says some guys around us run the coulters all the way up but that is also with air bags. You can sharpen your coulters if you want but I would definitely not waste money on new ones. After sitting all winter stalks should be rotten enough they should cut very easily. I've done it all and nothing works like good fresh sharp openers. It will be money well spent just remember the left hand side are left hand threads. Screwed that up before with an impact gun. Haha
 
I run in light clay to good loam ground. I only notill soybeans and zero corn. I have found on my ground the 25 wave 3/4 inch wide coulters do the BEST job. I ran bubble coulters for years they will hair pin. The 13 wave 1 1/2 inch wide coulters throw a trench in my soils.

You want to know the biggest secret to getting a JD planter to do a great job in just about any conditions??????????

!!!!SLOW!!!! down.

Running 4 1/2-5 MPH is as fast as you should go for a perfect stand. Talk to any of the yield winners and they will tell you seed placement is an inverse proportion to speed. The faster you go the poorer the seed placement.

Also on steep side hills, that you plant on a contour. Buy a finger pickup and have it in good condition an you will out plant the fanciest vacuum planters out there. I have seen it for the last 25 years. Guys don't believe it until you actually go out and do the stand counts.

>Also just about anything you do will be a setup from the frame mounted coulters. They where junked by the thousands around here. I would rather have good double disk openers by themselves over the frame mounted coulters.

I think you will find row cleaners will not work very well in heavy corn trash on your 15 inch rows. I would rather plant through the trash as the PILES the adjoining row cleaner throws up.

If you drive correctly you should be planting beside the old corn rows if you start the field correctly. You will need to be driving on the old corn rows.
 
On of my best years ever for corn, the 80 hp tractor broke, and the next best option I had at that time was the 27hp 1720 for a 4 row 7000. My gasser tractors of 40hp would be perfect, but none could lift it with fertilizer on.....

Anyhow I had to drive closer to 3 mph than 4, and did I have good corn that year. Was just a good weather year anyhow of course. But... A person should learn something from that.

Paul
 
I do use the seed firmers on my corn planter. I have not experienced dragging the seed and I do plant some clay hills like yourself. Back to my bean planter - even with my frame mounted no-till coulters the coulter is still just a couple of inches ahead of the double disk opener - wouldn't be room for a individual trash whipper. Like was mentioned I don't want to throw trash over on the others rows. In the best situation I would prefer all of the stalks still in the ground and sticking upward rather than smashed on the ground. Some corn heads really tear it up and then the combine wheels smash two rows down. By harvest most of the stalks are on the ground.
 
I am laughing John Deere Seller. "Plant correctly". I have so many terraces and contours I just want to drive where the marker takes me. Also, corn planter is 8 rows and bean planter is on a 6 row frame. Neighbor tells me I have rows anywhere from 20" to 36" at the end of the planter. In reality it all looks good and it all comes into the combine.
 
Thanks. I did put new coulters on two years ago when I put the planter together. I agree good coulters are extremely important.
 
This year we got a 12 row 1750 so I'm not dealing with a retrofit. That's the direction we were going to go, but the 7000's are so used up here.


Here's what I saw that made the 1750 work well. It has the Yetter (they may be real JD units) finger style trash sweeps on it but I rarely saw them working hard. This was in wheat stubble. Only in heavy straw or a weedy patch did they move debris. If they happened to dig in a little they trenched. There was a wet field that I had to disk and they moved some clods. Most of the time they were above the trash.

Put good down pressure springs on your openers. That's where the 1750 excels because of the airbags. I can't help but think you could get the same thing with a good strong spring. Get the opener pressure down close to the ground on the mechanism and you will have better response than a heavy box wiggling around and trashing the mountings. Especially on a field that is rough. I agree with the opinion that was given about replacing your openers with JD replacements. It is worth that money.
 
Andy I hear you on the terraces and contours. You can get closet than you think you just have to use some wind age.


As for the correct driving I meant start out straddling the old rows. 30 inch corn and 15 inch beans will mean dropping those first rows 7 1/2 inch each side of the old corn row.

Maybe just give up and plant at an angle to everything like a neighbor of mine does. On narrow contours he just wiggles back and forth like you would with a round baler. LOL HE says that way an entire row is not in the wrong place. Plus he gets more in a crooked row.
 
I used a 7000 planter for notill for one year. The next year I purchased a 1200 CIH and that was the best decision I have made in a while. The CIH row units are kick a$$ for notill., They are the only planter that has dedicated openers, closers, and firming rather than combining the closing and firming. They work extremely well in tough conditions. The depth control is also exceptional, especially at shalllow depths for soybeans, which can not be duplicated in a JD. Your 700 planter will resell well. Go get a planter for notill if that is what you want to do. You will be money ahead buying a planter for it rather than updating an old planter and making it work.
 

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