looking for a John Deere 7000 planter---advice needed

I'm looking to buy a John Deere 7000 planter for next year. I've been using a 494A (dad bought it in 1967, been using it every year since). However parts are getting hard to get. And there seems to be getting more problems with getting planting rates right, because it seems the seed corn companies are getting more and more careless with grading seed.

Some questions:

Are there still good 7000 planters around? How is it with parts for these planters?

When looking at one of these planters, what are the things a person should be looking at...common wear points, etc.?

I have 36 inch rows. Is it easy to change the row spacing on these planters?

I do minimum till (but not no-till). How do these planters work for that?

Going to be using it for corn and soybeans. How do they do on planting beans?

Any other advice and/or recommendations appreciated. Thank you!

They are good planters with plenty of parts still out there, shoup is a good place.

There are tons of aftermarket parts available. But a Kinze / New Idea/ Black Machine. Are a better deal. Lots of parts interchange. Kinze has the marker cylinders where you can see them. Not cables inside frame. Precision meters have been put in most. Look for them. Also singulator seed discs for beans. Might be a good time to upgrade to a 6-30"

Plenty out there, as stated this is good time to switch to 30" rows, no sense throwing that productivity away.

The arm lift mechanism on these is in the center tube, mice like to build nests in there, which rusts tubes, I would take it loose, clean inspect when you get it.

It is Not easy to change to 30 inch row spacing. Just buy 30 inch.

36 inch rows have been obsolete for 40 years.

The drive clutch jaws will wear over time, and eventually the clutch will work intermittently. 7000 planters probably have the best aftermarket parts support of any planter built. Shoup has a lot of the wear parts at a lower price than Deere, but Deere still has most of the parts available.

They'll work fine in minimum till. One thing I've added to help get through residue is a set of row cleaners. I have screw adjust Dawn ones, but anything with a spike or shark tooth trash wheel is better than the round or disc type row cleaners.

Conservation frame models are heavier (7" x 7" main frame) and are easy to change row width on, as the seed transmission and wheel modules are all bolted to the frame. The lighter frame ones have 4" x 7" frames, rockshaft-style lift, and are impossible to change from wide rows to 30" without cutting and welding the seed transmission and wheel support brackets to move them.

For planting soybeans, it is preferable to get brush meters, which are far and away more accurate than the seed cup style, which really just results in a semi-controlled spill of seed. They probably worked fine with inexpensive seed, but with bean seed at $50 to $75/acre, you can pay for a nice set of brush meters in a short time.

Opener discs should measure at least 14.5" across. There are many wear points, including gauge wheel arms, seed tubes, seed tube guards, bearings, chains, the clutch, and closing wheel bearings. But once in good shape, one will plant as well as the new ones.

Good luck!

Lon

I forgot to add, they are excellent at placing beans at proper depth. We drilled beans with a press drill for years, and were seldom happy with its erratic depth control. In hard ground, beans would be too shallow. In soft ground, they'd be way too deep.

I bought a 7200 planter just for beans, and I am constantly impressed by how well it works in hard ground, heavy trash, or lumpy fields that were worked too wet.

You can add down pressure springs to the parallel arms on a 7000 to penetrate harder soils too. Which reminds me- check for slop in the parallel arm holes and bushings where the row units attach to the frame.

Lon

I planted MANY acres of sunflowers with one. It was 60 ft. wide, 30 rows. It worked good. We disked first so I don't know how it would work for no till. Had to change some presser wheels. Had to do a lot of welding on the marker arms. They were very long! The seed monitor didn't work right so I would just stop at the headland and rotate the tires to make sure seed was dropping from every box. Planted 5 center pivots of 450 acres and one pivot almost twice that size.

The New Idea planters are the same planter as a White. White planters have fewer moving parts than the Deere. Those fingers in the seed boxes are a big wear item. I'm not a big fan of the White or Deer planters for the filling all the little boxes. They both do a good job of planting though. Now is the time to look at going to narrow rows for the beans(15inch) and 30 for corn. Or you might want to consider 20 inch rows for both. There are a few guys around here doing that with results.
The Kinze has push units for the front of the frame for the narrow bean rows. They just block up when not using. All of these mentioned planters can be had with down pressure springs for nothrill planting.

We have a New Idea. It had Kinze units. Finger pickup.

Our son bought his near Lexington KY and plants both no till and conventional.
Does a great job here in some tough clay ground.
Has no problem getting parts.
Has Kinze parts on the openers and Yetter trash wheels for no till.
Richard in NW SC

I have a rigid frame 8 row 30" for sale. Just went through it 60 acres ago. They work great in no till or conventional, corn or soybeans. Email is open. Dick

The typical 4 and 6 row 7000 is not easy to change the row spacing. The wheels get in the way, and they are a welded rock shaft, need to cut and reweld.

There are ‘conservation’ models where everything is bolted on and slides, but those are rare. As well the 3pt version, the 7100 is all bolt on, slides together.

Everything you need to repair, rebuild, or improve a 7000 you can get from Shoup Parts, cheaper and faster than you can from a mega Deere dealership. And Shoup has good quality.

Wear items, lift up those wheels on each side of the opening disks and see if they stay close to the disk, or if they flair outward. Easy fix, but it’s a wear item. Mice like to build a nest in the main tube and rust the hyd tube in there, the nest can plug up the marker mechanism needs to be cleaned out.

Otherwise, the typical stuff you are used to. Blades and bearings, slop and wear in the pivot points. You probably will find slop and wear in the pivot points, you can find oversized shims or otherwise ways to replace all that slop.

For soybeans, they came with a cup, which spills out beans depending how fast it turns. It works but not very accurate. Kinsey and JD and Shoup make seed meters, which do a much better job of metering out bean seed. You can find used for $60-90. A good investment.

For corn Precision Planting makes a slightly better finger pick up meter, if you buy a planter with old beat up corn meters you might want to just replace with the PP units instead of rebuilding the old ones. Either way. It’s probably a good idea to either replace or have the corn meters gone through and rebuilt, it is the heart and soul of the corn planter. Not too big a deal.

Some 7000 are plate planters, I hear more common in the south. It would appear you want a finger meter planter for corn, I sure would, so something to just make sure of, that you are getting what you want before driving a lot of miles. I’ve only ever seen one plate 7000 up here in the north, but they are out there.

Good machines, you will be happy, can plant with the best of the new machines.

Paul

Oh, they can be a little light for true notill into hard ground, folk add sand to the insecticide box or weight the frame and heavy springs, but in any type of tillage even light tillage they do very well. For true notill you might need to adjust the weight of the row units to handle it, and of course in true notill you need the piviot points and all that need to be much better shape.

Paul

I would buy a 30 inch row planter and be done with it. The only reason to stay with wide rows is because of harvesting equipment and your budget does not allow to convert over. Now if you are baling stalks like Tom or wanting to run a vintage harvester then that would be reason to stay wide but also quite a bit more difficult to find but not impossible.

First time I have heard a unanimous yes from the crowd here.

IMPORTANT, a belly pump on Farmall will not lift the marker arms, I would assume you want around 2000 PSI.

True, my Oliver S77 couldn’t quite lift the 4-38 7000 after the oil got warm, and my Ford 960 has a well worn vane pump, couldn’t do it either. I even put in a one size fatter hyd cylinder and still wouldn’t nana get it.

Moved up to a 6-30 now of late.

Paul