Precision Planting and Planter Maintenance Go Hand- in-Hand

By Harry Siemens

Founded in Central Illinois, Precision Planting takes the farmer’s existing equipment and maximizes the performance of the machinery.

Dustin Weinkauf Precision Planting’s regional manager for Western Canada Neilburg, SK, told farmers at St. Jean Farm Days 2023 in January how to keep planting precision at a prime.

Weinkauf said first is to ensure the planter’s maintenance is correct. Poor maintenance will trump good technology he said. Something as simple as nuts and bolts is integral to planter maintenance.

Next is ensuring the planter makes a good furrow for the seed.

“We only get one chance to give that seed the highest yield potential and that’s at planting,” he said. Anything else the farmer does throughout the year, whether spraying, applying fertilizer or harvesting, protects what was already there.

When inspecting farmers’ planters overall they’re good. But, moving down the road with sensor technology they’re starting to learn more about planters.

“As we get a better view of the things that the naked eye can’t see, we’re learning how to make those adjustments and really make sure we’re getting that full value out of that planter,” said Weinkauf.

Weinkauf showed some slides of the work it takes to do the maintenance right in the farmer’s workshop. He explained that this type of maintenance isn’t flyby-night work; they need to know what they’re doing.

“They do, and that’s why you’ve got to understand what you’re doing,” he said. “We have dealers placed throughout western Canada; our dealers are all trained in understanding planter maintenance and how to get us to that point.”

When the farmer needs information, the company’s planter maintenance guys will walk the farmer through the issue by going to the website. For example, what the measurements should be for different brands and models of planters today.

As Weinkauf mentioned seed placement is a one-shot event and very important. Some of his slides showed what misplaced seeds look like and where the yield loss begins. Then as seeds begin to skip and double up it robs the seeds of nutrients and water.

“If those plants are coming out of the ground late or not there, we’re giving access for other plants to grab those nutrients, or they’re competing for the same ones,” he said.

While simple for the trained technicians, for farmers, it’s a big deal how precise his planter can place the seed. Weinkauf said in seed placement on one of their metering systems they’re looking for over a 99.5 per cent singulation.

He explained that singulation and uniform spacing are two different issues. Singulation refers only to how the meter takes one seed off the disc and drops it down the tube. In contrast, spacing refers only to the distance between the plants in the row.

If we start to fall apart and get below that, we know we have a problem he said.

“Looking at spacing, we want to see our SRI, our seed release index, under 25 per cent which means that 75 per cent of those seeds are falling within the measurement we asked for in that spacing,” said Weinkauf.

He defined the cost per hour of a planter in seeds. A 16-row planter with 30-inch spacing, travelling five miles an hour, and planting a population of 34,000 makes for about 14.3 seeds per second coming out of that planter. A bag of seed corn at $300, with 80,000 seeds on average in a bag, costs about 86 cents a second coming out of that planter. Multiplying that out into an hour yields a figure shy of $3,100 an hour in seed coming out of that planter plus machinery costs, fuel, depreciation, and labour. As farmers get ready for spring planting, pay attention to everything he said. Although he may have looked at the machine last year and put it in the shed, it’s a good idea to pull it out and get the proper help. It may be something small to make a considerable improvement.