Front-Mounted Cover Crop Seeders Lets You Till Behind

Front-Mounted Cover Crop Seeders Lets You Till Behind PLANTERS “You can pull a tillage tool behind the tractor to spread and incorporate the cover crop spread by our up-front seeder It’s an economical way to plant cover crops after corn or soybean harvest ” says Gerry Wenzinger Wenzinger Farms New Bavaria Ohio       His company introduced the European-built seeder at the recent National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville Ky It’s available in 2 models both of which mount on a specially designed 3-pt hitch made by Wenzinger Farms It can be mounted on suitcase weights or directly on front of the tractor frame and also on back of the tractor One model is a broadcast spinner spreader with a capacity of 10 6 cu ft The other is a pendulum spreader that’s available in capacities from 10 6 to 42 4 cu ft Both models are driven by a hydraulic motor and come with a 540 pto shaft allowing the spreader to also be 3-pt mounted on back of the tractor The spreader is made by BMC Agricola a Spanish company and Wenzinger Farms is a dealer for them “We’ve designed this system mainly for use after corn harvest to plant cereal rye It’s the only cover crop you can put on that late and still get enough root growth to do some good ” says Wenzinger “We’ve experimented with this seeder for the past 3 years planting rye and pulling a vertical till disk behind to incorporate the seed We got a perfect stand every year Planting the seed and tilling it in one pass eliminates the risk that rain will prevent making a second pass with your disk ” The pendulum spreader comes with a hard plastic tube that extends about 3 ft in front and in operation it swings continually from side to side like a pendulum says Wenzinger “A pendulum spreader is more accurate than spinner-type spreaders and delivers an overlapping spread pattern that allows for more driving forgiveness with no skips or wasted seed due to double coverage ” One of the main goals of cover crops is to ensure that any nutrients not used by the crop will be taken up by the cover crop for release the following year “Farmers in northwest Ohio are particularly interested in reducing phosphorus runoff ” says Wenzinger “Our local Soil and Water Service offers financial incentives to help farmers get started planting cover crops Cover crops also take up left-over nitrogen ” He says the system offers a relatively inexpensive way to seed cover crops “It’s a lot less expensive than aerial seeding Some farmers use their grain drill to seed cover crops but it doesn’t take long before they have to spend a lot of money to replace all the wear parts on the drill ” Wenzinger says some farmers may want to use the unit to spread fertilizer “In that case they can just unbolt the hydraulic motor and bolt the pto shaft on ” he notes A 3-pt hitch designed to mount on suitcase weights sells for $500; and $600 when mounted on the tractor frame The broadcast spreader sells for $1 600 Pendulum spreaders sell for $2 300 to $3 400 depending on size Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Gerry and Robert Wenzinger Wenzinger Farms 14-406 Co Rd Y New Bavaria Ohio 43548 ph 800 972-7919; rswenz@henry-net com

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