Row Cleaner Down Pressure Regulated By Air Cylinders

Row Cleaner Down Pressure Regulated By Air Cylinders PLANTING EQUIPMENT Modifications 18-3-18 An Ontario farmer thinks row cleaners are a good idea but that they don't work well enough under all planting conditions. He's come up with a "super row cleaning system" to run ahead of his Deere 6-row planter that uses air cylinders to apply down pressure to row cleaners, allowing him to adjust how aggressively they move trash aside and work the soil. Steven Dennis, who farms near Walton, used steel tubing to make his own hitch and double toolbar frame for the planter, mounting the row units on back. The planter frame mounts on a semi trailer axle equipped with 22 1/2-in. tires. Rawson 12-wave coulters mount on the front toolbar and are followed by his home-built row cleaners which mount on parallel linkages. Downpressure on each pair of row cleaners is provided by a 21/2-in. dia., 8-in. long air cylinder. A pair of 8-wave coulters, spaced 8 in. apart, follow behind. "It lets me regulate downpressure on the row cleaners on-the-go right from the tractor cab," says Dennis, who patterned his home-built row cleaners after Martin units. "The more air pressure, the more aggressively the row cleaners work. Air is sup-plied by a truck compressor mounted on the tractor. In soft soil, conventional row cleaners move too much dirt out and make a ridge between rows that leaves the field in rough shape. I can raise my row cleaners on-thego without having to get out of the cab and adjust them. "Another advantage of my planter is that the hydraulic-lift toolbars have depth stops so the coulters always return to the same depth after I turn on headlands. Also, the planter will lift row units up to 4 ft. off the ground, making them easy to service. Dry fertilizer boxes equipped with extensions and a 700-gal. fertilizer tank mount on top of the frame. Dry fertilizer is dribbled to the side of one coulter and 28% liquid nitrogen is injected behind the other. Dry fertilizer capacity is 7,000 lbs. We can apply 200 lbs. per acre of dry fertilizer and 150 lbs. of nitrogen and plant more than 10 acres be-fore we have to refill. The liquid fertilizer tank mounts about2 ft. behind the axle so its weight is transferred onto the coulters with-out the axle having to bear the entire load. The planter weighs 1 ton per row empty. I pull it with my Deere 4230 tractor. "A set of Deere trash cleaners mount in front of the planter row units to provide rock protection. A bank of hydraulic valves to operate the planter mount behind the 28% tank and are controlled by air valves that I run from the cab. "We used a notched, 20-in. dia. deep dish disk blade mounted on coulter hubs to make our own row markers which leave an easyto-see mark. A 4-in. wide, 12-in. high rubber gauge wheel keeps the marker from going too deep. I can change the angle of the disk by adjusting the position of a pin. The markers are set to make the furrow 30 in. from the center of the planter." Dennis used 3 by 6 by 3/8 steel tubing to build the hitch and toolbars. He lengthened the track axle to 120 in. to straddle four 30-in. rows.

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