DEBDEN, Sask. Ñ When Marcel Couture bought a Flexi-Coil air seeder in 1981, it came with a two-compartment air cart. The system worked fine until Couture moved into liquid fertilizer.
In the early 1990s he modified the original air cart and mounted it on a farm-built wagon with a liquid tank. He’s used that setup for 12 years.
He started by buying two axles from pull-type combines: a rear axle from a John Deere and the front from an IH 914.
“One, the spindles were on already,” Couture said.
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“It must have been for combining row crops, so you could swing the combine anywhere you want. I took the (steering) cylinders off and put a hitch on.”
The rear tires are 28L x 26, while the front are 16.9 x 26. Couture bought three by six square tubing, matched the two axles up about six metres apart and built a rectangular wagon to carry the liquid and dry tanks.
The seed tank sits on the front and the liquid tank at the back. Couture built a hitch on the front axle, which controls the steering while towing the cart. The original dry cart had two hoppers that carried 85 and 75 bushels each.
He made the cart bigger by cutting off the top part and raising it about a metre. The addition gained him about 100 bu.
For liquid fertilizer, the plastic, flat-bottom 1,600 imperial gallon tank on the back of the frame is sloped to the back about three degrees to ensure it drains completely.
“We made (a reservoir) at the back, so if you come to a low part, you’ve got extra if it’s splashing around,” he said.
The reservoir includes the outlet to the product pump for the distribution system and two inlets for loading, both made from square tubing.
“We have some trucks that have a three-inch unload and some with two, so we have two on the cart.”
While the original dry product cart came with electric motors to run the product metering systems, Couture has converted those to hydraulic. He also operates a piston pump for the liquid fertilizer with the same hydraulic system.
“It’s wheel driven from the front of the cultivator. On that wheel, there’s an orbit motor. When it turns, it provides oil flow to turn the dry meters and the liquid fertilizer pump. With the liquid, if you don’t want it, you just close the tap.”
Couture said he got rid of the electronics and put everything in direct.
“Any time you have wiring, it works good for a couple of years, then you get corrosion in your ground and there’s nothing but problems. When the cultivator is in the ground, everything is turning and when you lift it up, everything quits.
“If you’ve got a hired man on there, you set the cultivator in the ground and it does a good job. That way, nobody forgets to turn it on. There’s less mistakes.”
A 25 horsepower diesel motor from the original air seeder cart turns the fan that delivers the dry product to the openers. The fill lid on the original cart had a screw-type closure system that Couture modified when he increased the cart’s capacity.
“It would get all rusted from the fertilizer. We took it all out, popped the height of the cover up, put a chain on top of that and use a chain tightener. It just takes a second to close and open the cover now.”
The unit came with a six-inch fill auger.
“We went to an eight-inch with a hydraulic drive and made it so we can empty the cart back into the truck, as well as fill from the truck.”
An old 25 gallon pressure tank was mounted in front of the liquid fertilizer tank. It gets filled with water to wash hands, clean spills and handle emergencies.
The 57 foot air drill averages 75 acres per fill and seeds 5,000 acres per year. Most of the time, he uses one dry compartment for seed and the other for granular fertilizer. The drill uses a three-inch spoon-type opener, with the liquid fertilizer dribble banded a centimetre to the side of the opener, on the soil surface.
“When you have to use potash, it’s only nine percent, so it’s almost water and it puts your volume very high. We prefer going with potash and a bit of phosphate as dry.”
Couture dribbles the liquid on top from the back of the shank and has found that it’s good to have phosphate with the seed.
“By putting some dry with the seed, it helps with the volume and gets some fertilizer right with the seed,” he said.
“With phosphate, it might be half dry and half liquid, and the sulfur goes with the liquid.”
