REGINA – Big drill carts stand out on the frontier of seeding efficiency.
The ability to remain in the tractor seat when others would be calling for seed and fertilizer refills is one advantage of investing in a larger air cart.
But size isn’t everything when it comes to carts, said Jack Oberlander of Amity Technology.
The cart must work with a variety of systems, if your drill doesn’t match the brand of the cart and it must be able to use the latest technology. It could also have something else that sets it apart from the other units on the market, such as stainless steel.
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The stainless steel tanks are a high profile feature of the Amity Technology Air Cart 5250. The 525 bushel, three-tank air cart is a new offering from the 13-year-old farm implement maker from Fargo, North Dakota.
“They won’t be corroding or leaking any time soon. Or at all,” Oberlander said about the cart’s high-chromium steel construction.
“We had intended to build the cart (tanks) from plastic. But during last year’s high steel prices we chose to buy a supply of stainless steel. Now we have it on hand and so rather than set up for plastic, we are making it out of the stainless steel and it seems to be a hit with farmers,” he said.
“We may still go to plastic tanks in the future, but we’ll offer them as a lower cost base unit and then have the stainless steel as an option. From a sales point of view with the stainless steel, I’m never going to have to deal with a paint warranty claim by a customer,” he said.
“They’ll always look the way they do when they leave the plant.”
The new drill has three compartments. The front is a 175 bu., 7,929 litre unit, the centre holds 225 bu., 6,166 litres and at the rear is a 125 bu., 4,405 litre tank.
The machine has hydraulically driven, variable-rate metering as standard equipment.
The company chose hydraulics over electric drives because it felt the draw from three meter drives was becoming too much and could lead to problems with reliability.
Hydraulic flow for the meters is scalped from the fan system before it reaches the blowers’ motors.
This means the unit needs only a single hydraulic circuit and the drives always receive a steady supply of oil.
A dual, five-inch air stream carries products to the drill, driven by a pair of six-inch fans.
“You still need a fairly current tractor to provide the hydraulics. It consumes about 35 to 40 gallons (per minute), to move the product,” he said.
Agtron of Saskatoon builds the controller for the variable rate meter boxes. The system is ISOBUS compatible and will work with Case Pro 600, John Deere Green Star II, New Holland and Agco display systems.
“The meter unit is simple and serviceable,” Oberlander said.
The cart can be set up to run as a pull behind or between unit.
