Shoulder Seeder-10 acres?

Thanks for that picture of a helicopter seeding cover crops.

I?d like to try planting some cover crops this year. I?m thinking about doing crimson clover, for added nitrogen, to help the corn next year, and oats.

I want to seed it into standing soybeans, so they can get started earlier. Plus, there would be less runoff, if there's some plants in the ground.

I?m thinking about seeding about 10 acres by hand into the soybeans, now that the leaves are yellow.

My question is:
How long do you think it would take to walk over 10 acres, spreading with one of those shoulder seeders? How much work would that be?

Does anyone have a recommendation on a good manual, shoulder spreader?
I see Cabela?s has a 25 pounder.

Thank you!
Cabelas Hand Seeder

Can you walk about three miles carrying 20 pounds of seed at a brisk walk ?

I would think it would be hard to walk through the beans.

I've used Pop's [possibly Grandpa's] old hand seeder like that, for years now. It's all they used to use. I think your idea would take one day, you would have to lay it out carefully, and you'ld get pretty tired. You might get a hit-and-miss result, over-seeding here and there and skipping here and there. Better result with a rear-mount three-point spreader on your tractor. But yes, I'd say it would be possible. I think you might enjoy it.

I have on of the old wooden seeders and that one from cabelas. I do NOT like the new one as the crank handle has a bend in it making it less user friendly for me vs the old one with a straight handle.

I think your results will be disappointing. The spinner on the seeder will not be much above the canopy of the beans, resulting in an erratic and narrow spread pattern. This, of course, depends on the height of the beans as well as your height! Walking will likely be difficult.

Comfortable walking pace is about 2 1/2 to 3 miles per hour. Walking through a bean rows carrying 20 to 30 pounds about a foot out in front of you while continually cranking the spreader handle at a constant speed could be tiring. I would guess you would be lucky to average 2 miles per hour not including breaks or time to rest your cranking arm. How long do you think you can crank the seeder before your arm gives out, and how many times a day can you go back to cranking the seeder?

Calibrating the seeding rate to your walking speed will take some trail and error in the field, I would not count on the recommended settings to be very accurate.

If your seeder covers a 10 foot width (four 30 inch rows), you will have to walk about 8.25 miles to cover ten acres. At 2 mph that would be a little over 4 hours of actual time spent moving and cranking. This assumes you can carry enough seed to make a full round without having to walk back to refill. The shape of your field will affect this. For better coverage, you could apply half rate going over the field twice shifting over two rows the second pass, you will have to walk about 16.5 miles, a little over 8 hours spent moving and cranking. How much seed will you apply per acre, 20 to 26 pounds per acre?


43,560 sq ft/acre x 10 acres divided by 10 foot width = 43,560 feet to walk

43,560 feet divided by 5280 foot per mile = about 8.25 miles

Where do you live? In my neighborhood, you won't get much N from any clover this late in the game. I have had good luck with clover interseeded into winter wheat, where the seed goes on in about March, and then takes over after wheat harvest. You can easily get 50-60 lb of N in that scenario.

As for the shoulder seeder, my grandfather used to seed a lot of clover and alfalfa with one... usually at the end of winter. He claimed if you did it atop the remaining snow, it was easier to see where he went!

The purpose behind the helicopter crops here isn't so much N fixation or a ton of green manure, but help reduce soil erosion, and keep something growing during more of the off season. The thing is sponsored by our local municipality, who has to reduce Phos emmisions. Hopefully having the cover there to protect the soil will reduce field loss a bit.

I cover about 4 acers a year with my hand spreader planting rye cover on my pumpkin ground. It doesn't seem like too big a deal to do it. Although I run the disk through after harvest and run a packer over it after seeding. I get more uniform coverage and use less seed as opposed to using the three point spreader on my tractor.
The spreading part wouldn't be that bad but I'm questioning the results you will get.

At age 16, I could do 15 acres If I remember correctly, the spread was about 30 ft. But that was in short oats. One key will be the spread you get in your soybeans. You might want to split the walk into two days. Note, you don't have to fill the seeder, just enough to make a lap.

I have that same seeder but it's about 50 years old. I replaced the cloth bag on it a couple of years ago.
It works great.
The weekend before last I spread a 50lb bag of rye on 1 1/2 acres.
Took me half an hour tops.
Bag held about 20 lbs in the bag at a time.
I could easily have done 5 acres without breaking a sweat.