New 24 Row Wide Is World's Largest Planter

New 24 Row Wide Is World's Largest Planter PLANTERS Planters 6-6-3 "Your readers would hate to miss this," says Richard Rupiper, White dealer and FARM SHOW subscriber in Henry, Ill., who arranged to build what's being called "the world's largest planter" for a customer, Bachman Enterprises of Putnam, Ill. The big machine is a 24-row, with 36 in. spacing between rows. It's outfitted with White 5100 Seed boss planter units on a bar custom-built by Shoup Manufacturing Co., of Bonfield, Ill. In planting position, with one marker down, the machine is right at 108 ft. wide. Fully equipped with liquid starter, insecticide, and no-till coulters, the entire unit weighs about 34,000 lbs. "Other than a couple oil leaks, we had no problems at all with the planter last spring. We pulled it through the field at 6.1 mph under both minimum till and no-till conditions," says Rupiper. "Depth control and spacing of the seed was excellent and the crop looked great this fall. And, for such a large piece of equipment, the machine handled very nimbly." Rupiper says Bachman, the farmer he had the planter built for, had used a 12-row wide planter in the past. Since he couldn't go to an 18-row wide planter because of his 12-row cultivators and other field equipment, he decided to go for 24 rows. "We approached several manufacturers before we found one willing to build this for us," recalls Rupiper. "There have been other 24-row narrow planters but, to our knowledge, this is the first 24-row unit with 36 in. spacing." The planter's toungue is 8 by 12 in. double-walled tubing and the wings 7 in. square tubing. Rupiper says the White row units were ideal for the planter because the company's no-till coulters fasten right to the frame, rather than to the planter units themselves, so that the weight of the frame is applied directly to coulters slicing through trash. At 6.1 mph, the 72 ft. wide planter covers 40 to 50 acres per hour. Rupiper, who is also a Deutz dealer, says a 140 hp. Deutz 4-wheel drive was used to pull the planter. "One of the most amazing things for observers was that the DX140 handled it so well. Many people said we'd need at least 250 hp., primarily because of the heavy 10,000 lb. tongue weight of the planter. However, the Deutz has the capacity to handle up to 14,000 lbs. It's built in Europe where they use a lot of heavy 3 pt. equipment." The planter transports at just 13 ft., 2 in. wide and unfolds for planting in just two minutes. Rupiper says he's ready to supply the king-size planter to other farmers but that he doesn't anticipate many orders. List price for the complete planter is right at $70,000. For more information, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Rupiper Equipment, Hwy. 29 South, Henry, Ill. 61573 (ph 309 364-2359). (EDITOR'S NOTE: In its very first issue (Jan./Feb. 1976) FARM SHOW featured a 36 row planter (20 in. spacing) with a rear-folding toolbar and equipped with Deere Max-Emerge Units. The toolbar, built by Kinze Mfg., of Williamsburg, Iowa, was purchased by Lawrence Hamilton, of Hampton, Iowa. It folded to 14 ft. for transport. Hamilton equipped it with 36 planter units for soybeans (20 in. spacing) and 24 units (30 in. spacing) for corn.)

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