Seed and speed: Factors in achieving consistent stands

PONTIAC, Ill. — Getting picket fence stands is the ultimate goal in driving yield.

“No matter what crop we’re planting, we want to make sure that we’re driving the most consistent stand that we possibly can. There are simple ways to make that happen,” said Bryce Baker, Precision Planting integrated marketing manager, at the company’s winter conference.

Baker focused on the seed placement factors of singulation, population, spacing and timing as ways to achieve the goal of optimum yields.

“There are yield, cost and profitability advantages from getting seed placement right and extremely accurate,” Baker noted.

A planting singulation study conducted in 2019 at the Precision Technology Institute farm at Pontiac found a 12.7-bushels-per-acre corn yield increase when improving singulation from 95% to 99.5% accuracy.

Another PTI singulation study focused on soybeans across populations ranging from 50,000 to 150,000 seeds per acre. The average gain across all trials was 1.2 bushels per acre with proper singulation.

Seed Meter

Traditional seed meters need continual adjustment to plant accurately which leads to skips, doubles and ultimately lost yield.

The address those concerns, Baker said Precision Planting’s vSet seed meters singulate seeds accurately without any adjustments and perfect seed placement throughout the field.

“There are yield, cost and profitability advantages from getting seed placement right and extremely accurate.”

—  Bryce Baker, Precision Planting integrated marketing manager

The vSet uses a high vacuum setting and an aggressive singulator to properly singulate seeds across a variety of sizes and shapes. There is no need to change the disk, the singulation settings, or the vacuum level. By the time the disk passes the singulator, one seed is ready to drop down the tube every time.

Drive Performance

Now that the spacing is addressed, the next concern is the drive system’s performance.

“What we want from a spacing perspective in our fields is to hit the bull’s-eye every time. But on a planter we have a drive system that drives the meter and if that thing is not in great shape and not turning the meter smoothly it will affect our ability to hit the bull’s-eye time after time. If maintenance isn’t done there’s real cost to it,” Baker said.

“When I think about a mechanical drive system on a planter I see complexity. There are a lot of things that have to be done right in order for the drive system to turn smoothly and space seeds perfectly. Even if it is all running right, there are still inaccuracies that can occur such as when planting around curves that lead to inaccurate populations. There is significant cost to it.

“Precision Planting’s vDrive is a maintenance-free electric drive system that lets you breeze through planting without the headaches of a mechanical drive system.”

The vDrive replaces the typical drive system that may have 138 parts with one electric motor on each row, minimizing risk and maintenance during planting.

“Not only is that drive system with so many parts gone and replaced with a vDrive motor, but you have swath control. The vDrive accommodates for issues around curves, adjusting populations on each row to match the speed of the row,” Baker said.

Timely Planting

Getting the crop in the ground in a timely matter is also a piece of the high-yield puzzle.

“Using some dates that I’m familiar with living in central Illinois, we usually start planting about April 10 or April 15. However, there have been several recent springs when the fields were wet and unfit for planting over an extended period of time. Then all of a sudden the calendar and an insurance date is looming. We have to be ready to go. We can’t control the weather,” Baker explained.

“In the farming community, planting is our mission. In planting season we need to complete that mission well and in a timely fashion. So, while we can’t control the weather, we can equip our planter. We can get the planter ready so that when it’s go time we complete that mission in a timely fashion because we know that if we’re late and we can’t get done or we’re later in the calendar year after the optimum planting time we lose yield.”

A corn planting date study found a loss of 10 to 11 bushels per week after April 25.

“The dates are going to change depending on where you’re at, but the reality is once it’s fit, it’s go time; if we’re beyond that we lose yield. It’s the same way in soybeans, the date may change and the yield may change, but once it’s go time and we’re late we run the risk of not getting done or losing profitability through lost yield,” Baker said.

“Let’s say it typically takes me 12 days to plant all of my crops. But sometime in the last year or two I’ve only gotten eight good days. How can I overcome the difference of four days that I need?”

Precision Planting has developed a SpeedTube seed delivery system that allows for double the planting speed without sacrificing performance.

As typical row units and meters bounce, seeds drop at different speeds, changing the spacing between them. Plus, as planting speeds increases, seeds increasingly bounce and roll in the seed trench.

The SpeedTube utilizes two feeder wheels to grab the seed off the vSet disk and place it into a belt that controls the seed all the way into the trench. The independent electric drive within SpeedTube matches the ground speed of the planter, enabling an ideal drop of the seed into the trench.

“It will plant it accurately, space it accurately, regardless of what speed you’re planting at. You speed up, it’s going to plant the seeds accurately, you slow down, it’s going to deliver the seeds accurately,” Baker said.

“The SpeedTube allows you to plant faster, more acres per hour, more acres per day, and fewer days it takes to put your crop in.”