Thursday, April 20, 2023
Well, the planters are finally started. Brandon started with the corn planter on Tuesday, and got along pretty well. Yesterday, he had an issue with a ‘brain box’ on one of the row units, but by speaking with a service rep at the dealer, he was able to get it going again. He will finish planting this farm today (should, anyway) and then stop. The cold weather predicted for the weekend still has us on ‘yellow light’ with the corn planting.
Brandon makes his first pass of #plant23
I got started with the new soybean air drill yesterday. I was confident I knew how to set the seed depth and the speed of the blower that moves seed from the tank to the drill. So, my attention was focused on the features of this drill that were new to me. I had Davis Gress with me from Hutson’s to assist with the start-up. I caught on to the “TruSet” down pressure system pretty quick, and then we turned our attention to the “Relative Flow” blockage monitoring system. There were some problems with a sticky, black substance inside one of towers; it even blocked a ‘boot’–the part on the row unit that actually places the seed into the soil. We discovered how this sticky black stuff had coated the electric eye in a couple blockage monitor sensors, and it took a while to clean all that stuff up. Eventually, we got it going. Then, we turned our attention to ‘tuning’ the section control, so that there was minimum overlap and no skips in the planting. Eventually this led to us discovering a kink in one of the primary seed delivery hoses. That choked down the air flow to that section, and delayed the delivery of seed to that section, relative to the other sections. We located the replacement hose down in Poseyville, and John traveled down there to pick it up. I planted the rest of the day with the section control turned off, just so I could get some acres planted. Hutson, Inc. sent a mechanic this morning to replace the bad hose. It was an eventful first day with a new machine.
This was Davis digging for seed to find out if the section control was operating properly. One section was not cooperating.
John came by in the Gator to observe the operation of the new drill.
Once we finally got rolling, the seed was going into the soil really well.
It was not a super-productive first day with the soybean air drill, but it can be expected to find some ‘bugs’ in the system. Today should be a better day.
We are not concerned about the upcoming cold nights on the soybeans; they seem to tolerate it better than corn.
We will have to pause the corn planter in a few days in order to apply the nitrogen to the 3 remaining corn fields. John is currently using the days when the wind is favorable to apply the herbicide to corn fields. Tuesday was a great day for that, yesterday and today–just too windy!
It feels good to get the planters rolling. Any crop planted in April is plus. #plant23 is underway!
