Building the perfect direct drill

[lloyd]

Come on you farm engineers if you were to build one from scratch
what features would be an absolute must.
Would you choose discs or more of a knife like coulter?
How would you go about designing a drill which would cope with a mixture of cropping
from Cereal,rotational grass ,into cover crops and permanent pasture.
Anyone had a go building one in the farm workshop?

 

[warksfarmer]

Come on you farm engineers if you were to build one from scratch
what features would be an absolute must.
Would you choose discs or more of a knife like coulter?
How would you go about designing a drill which would cope with a mixture of cropping
from Cereal,rotational grass ,into cover crops and permanent pasture.
Anyone had a go building one in the farm workshop?

https://tritonseeddrills.com/ with the new front disc option will cover majority of bases and has the best closing system on the market

 

[Watsonius]

It would have to be discs on my stony soil, tines would bring them all to the surface. Also a true direct drill should move the minimum amount of soil possible and discs are better than tines for that.

 

[sjt01]

Come on you farm engineers if you were to build one from scratch
what features would be an absolute must.
Would you choose discs or more of a knife like coulter?
How would you go about designing a drill which would cope with a mixture of cropping
from Cereal,rotational grass ,into cover crops and permanent pasture.
Anyone had a go building one in the farm workshop?

After having a GD for a season, followed by Weaving Sabre tines, we have now settled on Metcalfe legs and points, which work brilliantly on our very flinty soil with minimal wear, and get the seed to reliable depth at minimum disturbance. Simple comb harrow closes slit without issues on our soils,

 

[lloyd]

https://tritonseeddrills.com/ with the new front disc option will cover majority of bases and has the best closing system on the market

I was looking at an old thread on the triton the other day, how are getting on with yours? I am familiar with the Avatar and mzuri pro til.Both failed to do what i need .
The new Claydon looks interesting be good to hear feedback.

The reason i asked the original question is some of these drills have become very
heavy and perhaps over complicated.

 

[Clive]

Come on you farm engineers if you were to build one from scratch
what features would be an absolute must.
Would you choose discs or more of a knife like coulter?
How would you go about designing a drill which would cope with a mixture of cropping
from Cereal,rotational grass ,into cover crops and permanent pasture.
Anyone had a go building one in the farm workshop?

iso front tank - split product

250mm spaced mounted tined toolbar using bourgault vos openers plus a separate disc toolbar using horsch, jd or horizon disc coulters

swap between the options as required quickly and easily

liquid fert tank that can be quickly mounted on either toolbar would be good as well, not just for fert options but as additional weight to aid coulter pressure when dry

 

[lloyd]

iso front tank - split product

250mm spaced mounted tined toolbar using bourgault vos openers plus a separate disc toolbar using horsch, jd or horizon disc coulters

swap between the options as required quickly and easily

liquid fert tank that can be quickly mounted on either toolbar would be good as well

Have you ever thought of venturing down the engineering side ?
These wet autumns have taught us that pulling excessive tons around
fields is not a good idea.But can you lose enough weight whilst having
a strong enough drill that will perform the task in wet and dry conditions.like your thinking above.
if you could add or take away weight according to conditions would be helpful ie going direct
into grassland in drier conditions coulter pressure on a very light drill might not suffice alone.

 

[Clive]

Have you ever thought of venturing down the engineering side ?
These wet autumns have taught us that pulling excessive tons around
fields is not a good idea.But can you lose enough weight whilst having
a strong enough drill that will perform the task in wet and dry conditions.like your thinking above.
if you could add or take away weight according to conditions would be helpful ie going direct
into grassland in drier conditions .

i simply don’t have the time but maybe in the future i could - it’s something i find very interesting

i have had several requests to convert co drills like we have ours but it’s a time consuming job

 

[Nearly]

A couple of front hoppers and an assortment of 4m toolbars.

 

[Adeptandy]

A collection of drills like @Bob lincs solves most problems

 

[Adeptandy]

iso front tank - split product

250mm spaced mounted tined toolbar using bourgault vos openers plus a separate disc toolbar using horsch, jd or horizon disc coulters

swap between the options as required quickly and easily

liquid fert tank that can be quickly mounted on either toolbar would be good as well, not just for fert options but as additional weight to aid coulter pressure when dry

Having experienced the JD and Moore I'm finding the GD a better disc coulter. Still working on the tine version to add to the farm, but also like the look of the Cross slot, but finding someone to talk to that has one is a bit of a challenge.

 

[Spencer]

Multiple hoppers to apply different products as well as seed

 

[chaffcutter]

The Crossslot is a massive heavy lump to drag about, but if you want to look at one Bocassion have got one (as seen on Ollys vid a bit back).

 

[Bob lincs]

Having experienced the JD and Moore I'm finding the GD a better disc coulter. Still working on the tine version to add to the farm, but also like the look of the Cross slot, but finding someone to talk to that has one is a bit of a challenge.

Crosslot will need some serious HP .

 

[Adeptandy]

The Crossslot is a massive heavy lump to drag about, but if you want to look at one Bocassion have got one (as seen on Ollys vid a bit back).

And it’s expensive for a 2015 compared to other drills
I’ve had my eye on it before Olly highlighted it, looks I’ll be staying with the GD+ a tine drill of some kind

 

[Adeptandy]

Crosslot will need some serious HP .

More than the 240 I’ve got, think the welder will have to come out and create something tine based.
Just need a metering system for the KRM front hopper that sits in the shed

 

[Bumble Bee]

Have you ever thought of venturing down the engineering side ?
These wet autumns have taught us that pulling excessive tons around
fields is not a good idea.But can you lose enough weight whilst having
a strong enough drill that will perform the task in wet and dry conditions.like your thinking above.
if you could add or take away weight according to conditions would be helpful ie going direct
into grassland in drier conditions coulter pressure on a very light drill might not suffice alone.

Excess weight and manoeuvrability was one of my concerns when we upgraded to a bigger GD. So I went with a mounted toolbar rather than trailed. Just need a tined toolbar and maybe a cheap power harrow & disc Coulters to cover all bases

 

[Adeptandy]

Excess weight and manoeuvrability was one of my concerns when we upgraded to a bigger GD. So I went with a mounted toolbar rather than trailed. Just need a tined toolbar and maybe a cheap power harrow & disc Coulters to cover all bases
View attachment 1164789

Surprised you can get the coulter pressure on the GD discs without the hopper

 

[Bumble Bee]

Surprised you can get the coulter pressure on the GD discs without the hopper

We've only had one instance in 2022 when it was really dry that it wouldn't go into a grass field. The customer even tried some heavy simba discs in that field but failed! We had arranged for Weaving to send us some solid square bar to slide into the box section frame, but it never turned up and we have not needed it except on that occasion.
We can even get beans in at 3" with no problem.

 

[Devon James]

Has anyone seen in the flesh the Bramleys direct drill? First seen at YAMS last couple of weeks.