I have about 4 linear miles of point rows on the land I farm, some are gradual and some are sharp angled, so I did some rough figuring on the seed saved and the yield increase if I had GPS controlled individual row shutoffs on the planter. With a 12 row planter I figured an average of five rows were double planted in the point rows and the yield reduction was in the 50% range from over pop. I did not come up with all that much loss over all. My seed expense is in the $100 per acre range and my corn yields are in the 185 bushel/acre average range.
Last winter I got to looking the planter over and it looked like all the chains needed to be replaced plus the bearings on the drill shaft and counter shaft. I forget what the replacement cost would have been but it wasn't all that terrible bad considering. Then I got to talking to a good friend who sells Graham electric planter drives and he had a set of used motors and harness for half of new price so I took the plunge and converted the planter to electric drives. Each row has a little motor driving it controlled by the planter monitor. No more chains, shafts, clutches, just a little motor bolted to each row with three bolts. About that time Precision came out with a deal where for $500 per year for three years I could get a new precision monitor that would retail for I'm guessing $5000. I can even set each row to a different population if I want to, depending on what the particular corn hybrid I plant needs. The rub is whenever that planter is planting Precision is recording what the planter is doing and how it is performing. I already had the Precision seed tubes and torque sensors on the planter from the first Precision monitor I bought four years ago. The whole works cost about $1000 per row. When the planting season was over I was really tickled with the system. The motors gave no trouble whatsoever. If a motor does conk out, replacing it takes 15-20 minutes max. There were no chains to jump, bearings to seize, clutch to goof up, it just plain simple. Each individual unit shut off at the end of the row, no need to stop and wait for the planter to raise at the end of the field, when it comes to the end of the field the planter stops planting whether I am stopped or moving so that adds up to a time savings and wear on the tractor clutch. Precision had a few software glitches on their end that hopefully will be fixed by now. My stand was near picket fence partly because of the smoothness of the electric motors. This was all being recorded on an Ipad, a map showing the field, my travel speed, roughness of the ride, skips, doubles, planter swath spacing, the works. Last fall I had the tablet in the grain cart in corn and I noticed a place where the corn stand had some stunted plants once in awhile. I looked at the recorded map on the Ipad and found the planter units were bouncing more in that spot, hence a rough ride. The stunted plants came from seeds that were planted either too deep or too shallow from the bouncing and came up at a different time from the rest of the plants. In that area I should have been watching the ride quality on the monitor and pulled the throttle back until I came to smoother ground. That is an example of the kind of information the new electronics can give us. I have time to watch the monitor because the tractor has auto steer.
Now, for the down side of all this besides the cost. If the planter quits planting for no reason, what do I do? remember, there are no chains, sprockets, shafts to check out, it's now all fly by wire. The cell phone has suddenly become the repair tool. I would call a tech for help if there was a glitch, that was all I could do. Most of the time it was in the software or programming and as the season went on I got so I could figure it out myself, but boy those first few times when the planter quit on me or would not start a new field map I was fit to be tied. The biggest source of frustration was the clunky way of programming the monitor like I had mentioned in another post but that is becoming easier by the year, not by the minute, by the YEAR! LOL Anyway, I am real picky about the way my machinery performs. So yes going modern is expensive and it requires an open mind to be able to slug through the first year, but I am more than glad I went ahead and made the change. There is absolutely no reason for me to trade my old planter for a new one unless I need something bigger and that won't happen at my age.
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Today's Featured Article - Third Brush Generators - by Chris Pratt. While I love straightening sheet metal, cleaning, and painting old tractors, I use every excuse to avoid working on the on the electrics. I find the whole process sheer mystery. I have picked up and attempted to read every auto and farm electrics book with no improvement in the situation. They all seem to start with a chapter entitled "Theory of Electricity". After a few paragraphs I usually close the book and go back to banging out dents. A good friend and I were recently discussing our tractor electrical systems when he stated "I figure it all comes back to applying Ohms Law". At this point
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