No-Till Bean Planter

No-Till Bean Planter PLANTERS Planters 19-2-10 When Robert Weer, Goldsboro, Md., switched to no-till soybeans, he was able to avoid the cost of a new narrow row planter by buying a used Deere 7000 8-row 38-in. planter and converting it to a 14-row 17-in. narrow row planter. Weer bought the planter at an auction for $4,500. He moved the row units together and added 6 row units off a Deere 7000 6-row planter that he already had. "It was a fairly easy conversion," says Weer. "A comparable new 14-row planter would have cost $25,000 to $30,000." The 8-row planter had four lift assist wheels on back, mounted between row units. Weer remounted the lift wheel assemblies on front of the planter, adding two more lift wheels to handle the weight of the extra row units. He removed the toolbar that supported the planter's fertilizer disc openers to make room for the lift wheels. The seed transmission on back of the planter was also in the way of the closed-together row units so Weer cut it off. He put a sprocket at each end of the fertilizer transmission shaft, which mounts ahead of the planter, to chain-drive the seed shaft. Each chain drives 7 row units. "Using the fertilizer transmission to drive the seed shaft works good. I use the original shear pins to protect the row units," says Weer. "However, the seed transmission had a larger selection of gears than the fertilizer transmission has. Whenever I switch to a small seeded soybean variety I slip out the fertilizer transmission shaft, remove the existing gear, and put in a new one so that I don't have to slow down. "Mounting the lift wheels up front re-verses the pressure on the tongue - when I raise the planter, the wheels pull up instead of down on the tongue so that it wants to raise the back end of the tractor. The 17 seed hoppers each hold 1 1/2 bu. and the planter has cast iron closing wheels so the tongue puts a lot of pressure on the tractor. I mounted weights on back of the tractor in order to counteract the pressure. I use a 90 hp tractor to pull the planter. It does the job, but I could use a 100 hp or larger tractor to handle the reversed tongue pressure. "I've used it for six years. Until last year, I used my 6-row planter to plant corn. When I finished planting corn I removed the row units and mounted them on the 8-row planter so that I could plant soybeans. However, I didn't like wasting time switching row units when I could be planting soybeans so last year I bought six used row units for the 7000 planter. Now I have separate planters for corn and soybeans. I paid $750 for each of the row units and rebuilt them to like-new condition. "My 14-row planter has a rigid frame so I can't fold it for transport. However, most of my land is in one block so I seldom need to drive the planter on the road anyway. The narrow 17 in. rows help shade out weeds quickly. I had been drilling soy-beans on 7-in. rows, but I think I can do a better job on our sandy soil by not tilling the ground and conserving organic matter and soil moisture." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Robert Weer, 25250 Bridgetown Rd., Goldsboro, Md. 21636 (ph 410482-7237).

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