Thursday, March 23, 2023

In between showers, John has hooked the new soybean air drill to the tractor that will be pulling it in the fields–our JD 9520R.   There are several new features in this new drill and cart, and I need the machine connected to the tractor in order to make the calibrations, perform the set-ups, and learn the new things.   This new drill has “Tru-Set”, for the down pressure on the row units, it powers the down pressure in a new manner from the Power Beyond circuit, and it has an entirely new and different blockage monitoring system called “Relative Flow”.  I think I can become familiar with most of these things while the machine is parked here at the farm yard…the weather forecast is telling us we will have many days of heavy rain on the way.  I’ll use these days to freshen up my understanding of how these new features work.  I’ve read through the set-up pages in the Owner’s Manual for both parts of this new machine.

In addition, Davis is coming from Hutson’s on Monday to assist me through the set up and calibrations.  It will be a busy day!  I think there may be a software update needed in the cart.  We’ve discovered some cables and adapters on the tractor are now fully connected to power up the 5 cameras on the new soybean planter–one in each of the 3 seed tanks, one on the back of the cart, and one on the back of the drill.

Hooked up now, I can begin the learning process.

I’m grateful for John who did the hard part, removing the ammonia toolbar from the 9520R, and then making the myriad of connections of the new drill.

I’m still at the stage of life where learning these kinds of new things is still fun and interesting.  I suppose there will come a time when I dread changes like this, but I’m not there just yet.