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I did that once, back about 1992. It worked. I hinged some 2x6 to each end of the rear platform and mounted a cultivator shovel on edge to make a marker. I used cable to the front corner of the planter to slow the ripping off of hinges and planks. I lowered and raised the markers manually by getting off the tractor. To plant 35" rows, I cut wood blocks with flange that fit into the cup openings in the bottom of the seed box. My blocks had sharp corners and the openings are a bit rounded so it too a bit of pounding to put the blocks in, but then then didn't pop out either. Used to be JD had a part for that task of blocking off rows. I bought a small flat seed. To set the rate, I jacked up one wheel, put a chalk mark on the tire and with a pile of corn over one seed cup, I turned the wheel ten turns. I measured the wheel circumference, then times ten I knew the distance covered. A paper sack under the opener caught the seed and I counted them. Spacing in the row was not good, drill seed spilling cups never are. I found about 2% of the seed were split and probably not viable just going through the drill metering stuff. The 35" rows picked OK with a 36" combine head but those are getting rare around central Iowa. I wouldn't try it now. Maybe go for 28" rows. But I have a cyclo 400 seed spiller (but it counts good, just bunches the seed in the row) and a JD 7000 planter that I've set up for no till and it got me yield last year to match the neighbor's with their new expensive planters. 80% more than the yield I got with the drill. Fertilization had a lot to do with that also. Planters, like the 7000, do put the seed in the row more uniformly, and that makes a better yield. But the grain drill will plant small seeded corn. The corn would do better with press wheels to close the trench and cover the seed. Corn needs to be down to moisture 2 or 3" down often, or it doesn't come up even and the late stuff acts more like a weed than a corn plant and looses out on nutrition. Gerald J.
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