WOODSTOCK, Ont. — Kearney Planters of Ontario used Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show in Woodstock earlier this year to display a highly customized planter that it had set up for a customer.
The Kinze 3500 corn and soybean planter is an eight-row, 30-inch planter with 15-inch row capability for soybeans.
The auxiliary power take-off hydraulic pump is an obvious change to the planter. It was installed because the producer’s tractor didn’t have enough hydraulic power to run the fan on the planter.
The fan is also an aftermarket edition, which is needed to run the precision meters that Kearney installed.
Mark Malott, general manager of Kearney Planters, said the precision meters require a fan to create a vacuum, which attracts and then holds an individual seed to a disc within the meter.
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“Negative pressure or vacuum is introduced on one side of the disc and it’s going to suck through the holes, and as the disc turns, it’s going to pick up a seed,” he said.
“It will rotate around to an exit point where the air is blocked off or the vacuum is eliminated, and then the seed simply falls off the plate down into the seed tube.”
Extra liquid fertilizer tanks were also installed on the planter, which can now apply two different liquid fertilizers in a single pass.
“We could throw on a starter fertilizer that will go directly onto the seed that would be serviced through this seed firmer, which would allow product to be placed on the seed after the seed is placed in,” Malott said.
The other liquid fertilizer is a 28 percent nitrogen fertilizer, which is injected through a designated coulter is located two inches to the side of the seed opener. Malott recommended an application rate of around 10 gallons per acre.
“We’ve added a front bar kit to allow the coulters to be put on,” he said.
“This is a nice feature whereby we don’t have to go back in so quick after the crops is growing to put on our additional nitrogen.”
A quick fill attachment was in-stalled at the side of the planter to help fill either liquid fertilizer mixture.
“We can just remove our cap, start up our liquid transfer pump from our wagon or truck and we can fill up from the end of this planter,” Malott said.
A trash-wheel assembly attachment, which Kearney calls a clean sweep, is either air or hydraulically adjustable . Operators can set the trash wheel height while in the field to match changing field conditions and achieve optimal trash clearance in front of each row.
A cutting coulter behind the trash wheel cuts through remaining residue and pre-opens the trench for the planter’s double disc openers. It also reduces the workload on the openers.
“This is excellent for a no-till situation with residue or a stale seed bed where we’ve worked the ground several days in advance and now we can go back in with zero tillage and plant into that zone,” Malott said.
Cast closing wheels have been installed at the rear of the planter’s opener assembly to help close the trench.
The base planter requires two remote: one moves the planter up or down and the second, which has a diverter valve, is used to turn the planter for transport and operate the row markers.
“That planter has delta force, which is hydraulic as well, to keep a balance amount of pressure on the row unit,” Malott said.
The planter on display in Woodstock also required a third hydraulic remote to adjust the down pressure on the clean sweep trash wheels, which can be monitored through a pressure gauge inside the cab.
The monitoring system also keeps track of seed flow, including vacuum pressure, plant populations and seeded acreage.
The planter in Woodstock was 20 feet wide, although Kinze builds similar models up to 40 feet.
For transportation, the planters are lifted hydraulically, turned 90 degrees and become 11 feet, two inches wide.
Malott said the price of the base unit of the Kinze 3500 corn and soybean planter starts at around $80,000.
“With the enhancements you see here with the updated monitors and updated precision planting equipment on it, it may sway that planter up into the $125,000 to $140,000 range.”
