Re: Is this a good planter

Posted by Gerald J. on October 17, 2006 at 17:52:51 from (67.0.103.139):

In Reply to: Is this a good planter posted by Dave from MN on October 17, 2006 at 13:27:25:

That's a lot of money for a planter that old.

Today's Notill is different than it was then, the new stuff works the old ideas didn't then or now.

I have a 6 row 400, I had a 4 row wide 400 but I made it into a side dresser for applying 32% and stole some drive parts from the 6 row as well as floatation tires and bars.

I planted several years with the 400. It was generally good at counting out seed, e.g. once I cured it of double planting small flats, I didn't run out of seed by the end of the field but had less than a quarter sack left over. What it wasn't good at was spreading the seed evenly in the row. Those seed seemed to be lonely rattling out those long pipes (worse a neighbor says in 8 row) and so the clump. Three or four to a hill, then an 18" or 2' gap... It might be that a new set of pipes would have helped that, it might not. I'm not going to find out. I paid $1200 for a JD7000 4 row wide that not only counts good, it singulates the seed into a nearly uniform picket fence whether corn with the finger units or beans with Kinze brush bean units. I also made it narrow and this year added Dawn trash wheels. By next year I'll steal coulters off my plow to cut the straw so the trash wheels can part the trash and it will be a nice working full fledged no till drill. This year I planted beans into corn stalks that I'd lightly disked last fall to work in potash. In the future to disk is going to be left to rust also. I may have spray early, but the planter is going to do all the dirt stiring and the ground will grow increasingly mellow as the result. I sure could detect the hard pan from that light disking.

I won't call my 400 cyclo a planter, I call it a seed counter, though if you are happy with clumpy seed pattern and consider seed planted that is covered even if clumps, then its a planter. I think its a source of scrap metals when I need some steel in the future.

Oh, I paid $180 for my 6 row 400 close to 15 years ago and less than that for the 4 row wide 400 that I bought for parts maybe ten years ago. I've seen 500s at auctions not get any bids at all. $1500 is way out of line based on those prices.

Gerald J.

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