Proper seeding rates encourage even crop development and saves seed and money. A farm equipment designer has created a new precision seed meter that delivers near-seed singulation results for tiny seeds.Norbert Beaujot knew from experience that canola, especially the hybrids, are adaptive plants.If there are small gaps in the crop, they will fill in by the time of flowering.At the same time, there are plants that are ahead of others. A few have stalks the size of a man’s thumb, while others are more like a pencil.At flowering, some plants are in full flower, while others are starting to bolt.”In the field, you find groups (of seedlings) jammed together and then gaps of many inches and then bunches again. This means that many of the plants are crowded and a few get too much,” said Beaujot, president of Regina farm equipment manufacturer Seedmaster.Beaujot said farmers are often faced with a canola crop that has a wide variance in maturity in the fall due to the start the plants get in the spring.Air seeders are dependent on the random assignment of seeds passing through the air plumbing. The tiny canola seeds are metered out by large rollers that move slowly, relative to most other crops.This combination results in surges of seeds being dumped from the meter rollers’ cups.”When it comes to a plant that benefits from even seed distribution, I didn’t think we wanted to rely on random, mass distribution,” he said.The new Seedmaster canola metering system, dubbed Ultra Pro, is an option on the company’s hoe drills this year.”We have managed to cut seeding rates from five to six pounds (per acre) down to three. At $10 a lb. for the latest hybrid seeds, it is significant savings,” said Beaujot.”We still get the right plant populations for a high yielding canola crop,” he said.”If you have 1,000 acres of canola, that is a lot of money, more than enough to justify a new drill.”To ensure the seeds are metered properly, the Ultra Pro Canola Meter doesn’t rely on wide, shallow roller slots in a single, large roller feeding mass distribution tubes that later flow into distributor pots and then seed runs.Instead, it uses a series of small, one-quarter inch wide rollers. These rollers keep a steady flow of seeds moving into the air stream of each seed run at a rate of about 25 seeds per second.Lawrence Papworth of Alberta’s Agriculture Technology Centre in Lethbridge said the new metering approach is far more precise than what has been done before with air drills.”Nobody has been developing much for small grains and oilseeds when it comes to seed singulation,” he said.”We see singulation used in crops like corn, placing (seed) at just the right distance apart. For some crops, it isn’t as critical. It’s necessary in corn. There are advantages in crops like canola and mustard,” he said.”Our research has shown that any time you space the seeds well, you get improvements in emergence and development.”Guy Lafond of Agriculture Canada in Indian Head, Sask., who was consulted during the development of the new system, said there are advantages in improved seed spacing in canola.He said if producers can safely cut the number of seeds planted and maintain target plant populations and a good canopy that will defend against weed growth, the crop has the potential to develop more evenly and at a lower cost.Beaujot said those savings not only pay for technology but can also be reinvested in inputs and other tools that improve yield.He said the unit can be used for any small seeded crop, but canola will likely be the most common application.A corn version of the unit has also been developed but not yet released for sale. It will give Canadian and U.S. corn producers an option to planters with full singulation metering.”We’re still working on seed singulation technology for other crops. I’m hoping we’ll have technology for that in the next two years,” Beaujot said.
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