Row Cleaners Made From Lilliston Cultivator Rolling Baskets

Row Cleaners made from Lilliston Cultivator Rolling Baskets PLANTING EQUIPMENT Accessories 17-5-32 Rolling baskets off old Lilliston row crop cultivators work great for converting conventional planters to no-till, says David Schroeder, Coon Rapids, Iowa, who mounted individual gangs - each containing five tined wheels - in front of row units on his Deere 7000 8-row, 38-in. planter. Schroeder bought a 4-row Lilliston cultivator at a farm sale for $100. The cultivator was equipped with 8 rolling baskets, two per row. He cut the baskets off the gang they were mounted on and clamped them on the front bar of the planter, keeping the original mounting brackets and springs that applied down pressure on the baskets. "They work great," says Schroeder. "We've used them for three years, planting 1,500 acres per year. We plant on top of old soybean rows where the soil is drier. We run the wheels about 1/2 in. deep to throw trash off to the side without removing a lot of soil. All five wheels are mounted in a row side by side just like they were on the cultivator. The wheels all turn together and are spaced about 2 in. apart. I can use a wrench to adjust the angle of each basket and can loosen a set screw to adjust the spring down pressure. Part of the original mounting brackets are mounted on vertical brackets that I made from angle iron. The vertical brackets clamp onto the bar and have holes in them at different heights so that I can raise or lower the baskets for different field conditions. I set them lower in heavy corn stalks and higher in bean stubble. "I had been using Deere no-till wavy coulters in front of the row units, but I didn't like how they worked in soybean stubble. The coulters just slit a groove in hard, dry soil, pushing stubble down into the furrow. The press wheels couldn't seal the furrow so seed that fell on the stubble popped out of the furrow. I looked at commercial intersecting trash wheels but couldn't justify the cost. I think our cultivator wheels do a better job than commercial trash wheels because they provide a cleaner, wider seedbed. Makes our herbicides work better. "So far we haven't seen any yield difference between our planter equipped with rolling baskets and a no-till drill. We're now testing the baskets to see how they work for planting beans into standing corn stalks. I think the baskets could be adapted to any planter if you made different mounting brackets. My father-in-law put them on his Deere 7200 planter which doesn't have a front bar." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, David Schroeder, 323 7th Ave., Coo(' Rapids, Iowa 50058 (ph 712 68`4-5224).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.