Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Last year we were drilling at 6m wide with zero offset. Spent a while measuring row spacing and thought this was right. First set it up in cultivated ground. To be honest didn't then pay much attention to it. Later on in the season suddenly realised that we had uneven gaps between bouts. After some measuring we put a 7cm offset and that seemed to be OK until the beans when we had to go back to zero. Overall we had some messy misses, but chalked it down to experience and vowed to avoid it next year.
This year has been far worse. Have been thinking about the issue, but obviously not often enough as we have big gaps all over the place. In some fields the gaps appear across the field as the soil type changes. The offset seems very sensitive to soil conditions, drilling depth, cultivation type etc.
Speaking to @Simon Chiles no-one else seems to have this problem and I'm not sure why we're getting it. Have checked check chains and link arm settings and they are tight and the same both sides. Our foreman says he can see the drill move across as it hits tougher bits of ground. Might be exacerbated by all the different things we've done in fields -- i.e. Terrastar once or twice, zero till, full plough based cultivation -- that is causing so much variation.
To get the spacing just right takes a lot of faffing around and wastes time. Have enquired about implement steering, but apparently it's not simple and I'm guessing will be quite expensive. Really want to carry on drilling at 6m.
Any suggestions?
This year has been far worse. Have been thinking about the issue, but obviously not often enough as we have big gaps all over the place. In some fields the gaps appear across the field as the soil type changes. The offset seems very sensitive to soil conditions, drilling depth, cultivation type etc.
Speaking to @Simon Chiles no-one else seems to have this problem and I'm not sure why we're getting it. Have checked check chains and link arm settings and they are tight and the same both sides. Our foreman says he can see the drill move across as it hits tougher bits of ground. Might be exacerbated by all the different things we've done in fields -- i.e. Terrastar once or twice, zero till, full plough based cultivation -- that is causing so much variation.
To get the spacing just right takes a lot of faffing around and wastes time. Have enquired about implement steering, but apparently it's not simple and I'm guessing will be quite expensive. Really want to carry on drilling at 6m.
Any suggestions?