Planter stories, have any good ones??

With tons and tons of rain it"s going to be a while before planting around here. We were talking about last year and it reminded me of a good one. I took out a fencerow 2 winters ago and found a leftover root late one night when planting last spring. It wedged up in the back of my closing wheels and dug a perfect furrow through my newly planted soybeans. So perfect you could have planted potatoes right in it. Made 4 passes on an almost half mile field before I caught it. Next day tried to figure out what to do. Sat a guy on the back of my gator with a garden rake and raked the soil and beans back in. Came up perfect. No one could tell except for me!!

One time, I tried to get cute on a headland turn and lowered the marker arm a bit too soon, tearing the arm beyond repair in the tree row. The local dealer did not have a replacement, but a dealer 70 miles away had one. My wife graciously made the 140 mile round trip to pick it up, while I planted "blind" one way. The punchline is, this happened on Mother's Day. We still laugh about it every May.

The only thing I can think of, that may be interesting is we planted this section of a field that for some darned reason, as long as I can recall was in sod, mostly orchard grass and similar, no real saplings or anything, some weeds etc. After the '08 ice storm, spring of '09 was a mess along all the hedgerows, so it was my job to clean it up and I brought this field back to its old perimeter and the farmer I was helping was going to plant it back into corn. So he mold board plowed it and it was one of the few times I had ever seen the IH 5-18 auto reset spring trip, actually trip, rocks or just that thick root bound sod. Field was a bit odd with a small wooded rock outcrop, actually I kind of like the odd tree or small area within a field you can't plant, gives it some feature, something prominent you can't really change or may not ever cause everyone before you went around it. Great deer blind LOL! Well everything went along as planned but when he planted that entire section the fertilizer was not dropping on that 7000 series JD 6 row planter. He said that to me, and I thought well maybe the spray guy will apply something, but when we went in there to harvest the oats in the adjacent field, the corn was a lush dark green, tall etc. every bit of that field, it looked better than other corn, but of course thats different ground. The same field on the farthest and lowest end, when they harvested, the bearing that has a zerk under the seat of the 6620 combine overheated and it almost went up, thats the one people miss, and I greased that thing numerous times, never knew about it either, he was lucky on that and several thousand later, having to get someone in there where it was to do the repair all was well again. He really spruced this 6620 up to, all new tires, oversize for flotation or traction, apparently had a rear drive set up from a 7000 series, as the fields can get absolutely miserable with soft ground, that must have been the reason, was said that you have to use some care as the oversize tires and the axles on it, tires were a bit much, but he did not get stuck often as much, man did that thing sink one afternoon at my place, trapped water in one spot, thankfully the FWA3150 JD could tow it out while in the same soft ground.

I remember in days before Planter Monitors a lot of skips in planting were not noticed until corn emerged. The IH Dealer in Troy, Ohio where Dad worked all his life and I grew up at sold a lot of Cub Cadets because of this. The Cadet was equipped with a Brinley one row planter and the farmer or one of his kids would spend days re-planting those skipped spots....one row at a time !

Roy Liskeys...

Years ago I had two seperate twenty acre fields I planted winter wheat in each fall. I was busy doing something else one fall and asked my ex wife to plant one field for me. I loaded the drill and showed her what to do. Told her to check the box every few rounds to make sure all the feed cups were working. I was working near the field and didn't pay any attention to her for awhile. Finally I looked over and noticed she was a lot further along than she should have been and had it in high gear. Watched her for a few rounds and she never stopped and checked the seed box. I figured I better go over and see what she was doing. Got her shut down and asked her how it was going because she should have had to stop and put more seed in the box by then. Walked back and opened the lid. Box was still near full of wheat. Don't remember now whether the seed cups were plugged or a drive chain had broken. Told her she was supposed to stop and check it every so often. Last time I let her plant.

I could write a book about all the stupid things I have done while planting. One memory that sticks in my mind is back when I planted with the IH plate planter and JD A. I planted soybeans into a corn stalk field that had been disked only, no heavy tillage, so the ground was fairly hard. I had the planter depth set accordingly so it would penetrate far enough to get the seeds in and inch or so. Finished that field and went to another field that was fall plowed peat ground, soft as can be. I took off planting along the edge of the field and after 1000 feet or so it dawned on me that I had better check the depth. The seed was at least 3" in the ground, way deep for beans and if we have a hard rain that makes crust those beans won't make it through. So I shallowed it up to the right depth and planted the field. It did not rain for a couple of weeks after that and the first 1000 feet came up with a near perfect stand. The rest of the field was very uneven. You can't out-guess mother nature. Jim

Dad went out to get our grain drill ready one spring, an old wooden box, steel
wheeled drill, I don't remember the brand right off.
Anyway, Dad was deathly afraid of snakes, and when he lifted the wooden
hopper lid there was a big Blue Racer clinging to the bottom of the lid.
He slammed that lid so hard the snake was cut into pieces, plugging the seed tubes.
He wasn't cleaning it out either!

Had a neighbor who loaded his planter with it's new 2 bu. seed boxes and proceeded to plant 25 acres without checking his boxes. One never went down any- it just happened to be an outside row. So, he waited until the fields emerged, and took his old two row planter out of the shed, hooked it behind his trusty old 35 and replanted the rows he missed the first time. He was just lucky it was the last row on the planter- when he turned around, it put the dead rows next to each other. But he really wound up overplanting about four acres of corn that he missed. The next year, he bought a monitor.....

We always planted the end rows first, three passes, 12 rows. We had some rented ground and it worked like an ash bed, Dad was on the last end row pass when it started raining so hard I could hardly see him on the far end. The narrow front balled up(JD 70) and the wheels didn t turn at all on the trip back to the other end, just steered with the brakes. I drug the harrow over the planted rows to break the crust a week later.

When I was a kid dad had a jd494 that he pulled with an oliver 1650. I was about 5 and was riding along with him when all the sudden there was a pop and flames started coming out the side of the tractor. He stopped the tractor and jumped off with the feed bag that was covering the tattered seat and snuffed out the fire. upon inspection there was two wires that had chaffed and come into contact with each other and caught some oil or fuel on fire. He taped them up and the tractor started and we went back to planting. one of the first times I remember thinking "what a day".

I"m on my third 7000 since 1976. Monitors have never failed me, except when I failed it- on the first 7000. I"ve probably planted more at night than in daytime. First 7000- had an issue, when a light came on. Unhooked the drive, fixed the issue. Planted 7 acres with one lite on....figured the monitor was just touchy and wrong. It was right! It was not planting that row cuz I didn"t re-latch the drive. Found the spot in the field, knew the direction I was going.....put that row on and the other three off, and replanted the 7 acres.

BTW, at night I have a shop towel over the monitor, held on with two little magnets. Monitor lites show up under the towel without being bright enough to ruin my nite vision at each end of the field. I"d rather plant at nite with a monitor than daytime without one. And that miserable buzzer??? Not so bad on an open station 3020, but the cab tractors since? I stuff the buzzer with duct seal, right through the front vent! I don"t need the audible...the monitor lights are right in front of me in the cab! Simpler than going inside and cutting a wire.

Every year there will be someone who has a noticeable planting mistake from marker being off to planting many acres with a bulk fill planter missing a row due to not beleiving monitor.It is always funnier when it is someone else.Last year on our planter the low population light came on and I finally found the pressure in contact wheel had deflated .Aired it up and it was the problem.The moniters work so well its hard to remember planting without auto steer and fancy monitors.I would always check the ends every so many rounds when I raised it to see the seed laying on top of ground as I still have trouble finding it when I dig.

I was planting oats last week and one seed tube kept plugging. After digging around in it, I pulled out a Kokanee beer cap. Someone drinking on the combine?

My uncle was finishing the last field one night. Lost his marker track a couple times. Dad says he planted the thing twice, three different ways.

Was cultipacking behind the drill for a friend a couple years ago. It had rained and we disked it before it dried enough, and it was hard finding your tracks to do much of anything. The guy who was cultipacking ahead of the drill almost hit several deer. I called him when he stopped, one almost ran into the side of the tractor.

Yes !

hi bill im from covington, were you from.

fordfarming, Did Henry Apple get you on to Ford's? I may know you ?

Grew up 5 miles east of Troy, moved to Springfield in 1966. 38 years of work in New Carlisle, Shroyer Impl (MF) and Hal Gilliam Ford. See I like Ford's also ! Past nine years at Farmer's Equip. Urbana. Just retired from full time work there at end of 2012.

email me if you wish. Bill