What you don’t put in the ground can add up.
Not putting seed and fertilizer in the ground might sound counter-intuitive to many farmers. But for producers already targeting maximum economic yields, the execution of their plan is based largely on what happens at seeding.
Dwayne Wolf of Moosomin, Sask., feels the savings from his new 84-foot drill and seed cart over the next five years will pay for the machine.
He found those savings from being able to cut off his inputs in places where a seed drill typically overlaps already planted acres.
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“This year we saw about a 20 percent savings in acres worked,” he said.
“On 10,000 acres, that means it costs me about $50,000 less this year for inputs, just on what I don’t put in the ground. That more than pays for the drill’s optional section control system in this single season.”
Langbank, Sask., seed drill company Seed Hawk released the first half-dozen of its new drills onto the market this year. Five are in Canada and one is running in Australia.
Pat Beaujot of Seed Hawk said his company wants to ensure it has all the bugs out before releasing more of the units into the marketplace.
“This is our year to get some input from producers and work out any kinks in the system,” he said.
The SCT breaks up the drill into operational sections up to 10 feet wide and will pull those sections from the soil and cut off fertilizer and seed as the machine passes over already planted areas.
Eight individual gates open and close at the meter on the seed cart.
A global positioning system and as-applied computerized field mapping provides electronic instructions to those gates and the hydraulically controlled shanks, allowing the hoe drill to remove its toes from the soil whenever it might begin overlapping previously planted ground.
Farmer Ron Herpberger and son Blake of Atwater, Sask., are running one of the 72-foot units this season.
“It’s sprayer technology that lets us get away from foam markers and later was able to cut off our (sprayer) booms in sections as we overlapped with our herbicides,” he said.
“It’s based on the Raven Industries Accuboom type of systems we all use on our sprayers now. That technology saved us big money on spray. The Seed Hawk is saving us even bigger money on seed and fertilizer.”
“It doesn’t take a lot of $800 nitrogen and $7 a pound canola seed being doubled up on to pay for this option on a seeder. It saves me eight to 10 acres on every quarter,” he said about the almost $50,000 price.
Wolf said drill overlapping in pothole-filled fields, as his 10,000 acres are, has always cost him money.
“We were able to shut off (seed and fertilizer to) half of our old machine manually. And I modified it by adding a hydraulic cylinder to pull one half of the unit out of the ground independently. But half a drill doesn’t cut it. This Seed Hawk with the Raven controller takes it to a whole new level,” he said.
The mapping system allows him to see his savings as they pile up, due to its acres-seeded accounting.
“Even in the few straight quarters we have, it’s letting me avoid running down a half or mile overlapping 25 feet on that last pass. There is nothing that makes you madder than doubling up for a whole mile,” he said.
Herpberger said beyond the immediate savings of inputs, he is planning on improved agronomy paying yield dividends.
“As farmers, we spend a lot on the best drills. There aren’t too many bad ones out there. The best of these machines is expected to give you a great seedbed. The Seed Hawk is one of those. But why would you spend all that effort and money to then rip through an overlap and damage that seedbed. Getting those shanks out the dirt is going to be worth something and we’ll find that out this fall,” he said about the 4,400 acres he seeded this spring.
Herpberger said over application of seed and fertilizer due to overlapping has caused him lodging and disease issues in the past rather than boosting yield in those areas.
“If you have your inputs right in the first place, you don’t want to put any more in the ground. It’s just like overlaps with the sprayer, where you used to hurt the crop,” he said.
“Technology has fixed that for us and now we are applying it to seeding. This is exciting, we have the same kinds of efficiency that are standard practice in other businesses such as oil and gas or manufacturing,” he said.
Both farmers said they found themselves using as little as a single section of the drill for finishing ditches and water runs.
They said they experienced some early season challenges with the interface bwtween the Raven Viper controller and the Seed Hawk system, but the companies quickly worked them out. The machines then seeded without incident and had easy to use and intuitive controllers.
Wolf said for 2010 he wants to combine the SCT with the Seed Hawk Seed Between the Rows system, letting him place his new crop between the stubble from this year’s crop.
“And I’d like them to add an extra tank to the seed cart for full variable rate use,” he said.
Wolf feels wasted fertilizer will soon attract the attention of the public and governments.
“They will want to have a say about how much we use,” he said.
Beaujot has found people are interested in farmers using less and reducing the environmental impact while improving agricultural profitability.
The Seed Hawk SCT was the lone Canadian winner for 2008 when the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers handed out its top 50 innovations in agricultural engineering awards. (See following page.)
The option will be available for larger, limited release on the 2010 machines. For more information visit www.seedhawk.com or call 306-538-2221.
The unit will be at the Farm Progress Show in Regina June 17-19.
