GEN Openers

[dontknowanything]

Just spent an interesting morning with Soren Ilsoe looking round his farm, and also at the GEN openers he's importing. Saw some bean drilling, as in the video. Doing about 11k.

 

[Hartwig]

Ah, now I know why I didn`t got Soren on the phone yesterday.....

Looks good, these are the new coulters !? Sadly I stopped drilling beans with my Horsch and GEN-openers yesterday because it simply blocked everywhere in the coulters and tubes, spent half the afternoon to try it and switched back to my Moore now. Don`t want to blame the machine for that as it works well for Soren, my hom-safed-seed is probably not clean enough for the narrow coulter, never had real problems with the Moore as it all goes straight, but the GEN is just narrower for the seed to go through. Maybe the new one is better ??

Soren is going deeper than I tried yesterday and it looks easier on the vid - my 125hp on 3m where not too much and the shanks moved really much, especially sideways as I have only one outlet/wing on one side, so the force as asymmetric on the shanks.

 

[dontknowanything]

Yes they are the new coulters. I cannot see how there would be a problem with beans on the new one, as the opening is as large as the pipe feeding into it. I think Soren did say it was an improvement in this respect over the older ones.

 

[Fred]

what do you think the advantage of these Gen opners over Duetts is

 

[dontknowanything]

what do you think the advantage of these Gen opners over Duetts is

a bit less soil disturbance mainly. If you look at how the duetts wear you'll see they are tilted back slightly, and so they push through the soil from the back. The GENs are supposed to lift the soil a little with the wings, but not push any forwards. This is for the double opener one like in my still photos, although I did not actually see them in action. The narrow coulters that are in the video doing the beans are I would imagine almost identical in function to the Horsch Solo ones.

However the GENs are a bit more economical.

 

[Elmsted]

a bit less soil disturbance mainly. If you look at how the duetts wear you'll see they are tilted back slightly, and so they push through the soil from the back. The GENs are supposed to lift the soil a little with the wings, but not push any forwards. This is for the double opener one like in my still photos, although I did not actually see them in action. The narrow coulters that are in the video doing the beans are I would imagine almost identical in function to the Horsch Solo ones.

However the GENs are a bit more economical.

The Horsch duett is not suited to our soils exactly as you say it tends to induce a layer of compaction. Though not a tine fan those Gen coulters look a step forward.

 

[Andrew K]

Would they fit a Mzuri Soren?

 

[Clive]

Would they fit a Mzuri Soren?

If they would that would be an interesting machine

 

[Jim Bullock]

Just spent an interesting morning with Soren Ilsoe looking round his farm, and also at the GEN openers he's importing. Saw some bean drilling, as in the video. Doing about 11k.

View attachment 2740View attachment 2741View attachment 2742View attachment 2743

dka ...was the video into direct into untouched soil or had it been moved at some stage since harvest? Our best establishment this spring has been into land that was flexi-tined last September..to remove the combine wheel marks (@ no more than 75-100mm) although it looked a real mess over winter the "weathered" surface has produced a really good seed-bed...where we are going direct into totally un-moved soil it is still very "livery" and now that it has dried out we have dried out "vees/slots" with seed sitting in the bottom of the open furrow..

 

[dontknowanything]

It had had a cover crop on it, I'm struggling to remember what exactly, might have been ryegrass? That had been put in with the same drill so in effect the field had been cultivated.

 

[Martin Lole]

dka ...was the video into direct into untouched soil or had it been moved at some stage since harvest? Our best establishment this spring has been into land that was flexi-tined last September..to remove the combine wheel marks (@ no more than 75-100mm) although it looked a real mess over winter the "weathered" surface has produced a really good seed-bed...where we are going direct into totally un-moved soil it is still very "livery" and now that it has dried out we have dried out "vees/slots" with seed sitting in the bottom of the open furrow..

Hi Jim
Mzuri are aware of these types of coulters commonly used in America/Canada. We do have concerns that, as experienced by Hartwig, they tend to struggle with the increasingly higher seed rates.
This spring we have seen seed rates for oats and beans up to 300kg/ha, combined with at least 50% fewer coulters this will question coulter capacity.
Jim, this spring I have avoided getting into the 'liver' and concentrated the seed into the top 1/2" of weathered surface and like you achieved pleasing results.
Photos of wheat and rape drilled 3 weeks ago.

 

[average farmer]

These new coulters look great, I've been thinking about making a osr seeder for this backend with a old super flow frame by mounting a old accord hopper on top to put slug pellets and/or fert in bands behind the press wheels and putting the osr infront with a micro meter. now thinking buy a old CO drill and put the fert on through the hopper and drop the seed infront of the wheels in bands. Then for wheat drilling put the seed through the hopper and slug pellets/avedex through the micro meter.

main concerns are would a 160hp tractor pull a 4m Co with these coulters on putting osr on and how much would it cost to put them on a 4m CO and would 2 micrometer boxes spread avedex evenly over 4m?

 

[Hartwig]

Last autumn I bought the CO and fitted with GEN-openers to have any chance to get a crop in the very wet conditions, on the last day the electronic had a breakdown, so I had to switch to my Moore to get the field finished before the next rain that had finished the season then. So I have some side-by-side comparisons from Moore and GEN in my wheat and see now that there isn`t much difference from the stand, which really surprises me. It has absolutely more to do with type of soil and if it drains off or not !! The only obvious difference is that the Moore failed more in the wheelprints of (tracked) combine or chaser bin, where the little drainage channel from the GEN helped the seedlings probably a little. The rest is up to now no obvious difference, but will be interesting to see how the crops goes further on.

 

[JDJ]

Wheat (Frument, Herrford and Mariboss mix) drilled with 6" GEN. 10 September .
This end of the field is heavy clay (+50% )
One pass with a Dalbo maxi disc the day after combining (20 August )

In the past we have cultivated , cultivated and cultivated trying to make a seedbed. This year we almost didn't do anything and the results is the best ever.

Sorry for bad English . Jacob.

 

[Hartwig]

Jacob,

assuming you had similar weather this season in Jylland like I had in Sydslesvig, drilling that early the way you did should really be a no-brainer as long as you have not too many slugs. Looks good, congratulation !!
There is no residue at all to see, so what was the forecrop ??

Are you using the GENs on a Horsch CO ??

 

[SorenIlsoe]

I am off course happy to hear that!
Regards Søren

 

[Badshot]

View attachment 19437 View attachment 19438

Wheat (Frument, Herrford and Mariboss mix) drilled with 6" GEN. 10 September .
This end of the field is heavy clay (+50% )
One pass with a Dalbo maxi disc the day after combining (20 August )

In the past we have cultivated , cultivated and cultivated trying to make a seedbed. This year we almost didn't do anything and the results is the best ever.

Sorry for bad English . Jacob.

No need to apologise for bad English, your's is fine and a lot better than my Danish. You are finding the same as me, that the soil gets easier the less you do, when it gets chance to repair the damage inflicted upon it by repeated cultivations.

 

[JDJ]

Hartwig: Here we had the best weather for harvest and drilling for many years. I was almost to dry. Slugs don´t seems to be at problem on my farm, last year we used 25 kg of slug pellets and this year we haven´t used anything. Maybe they don´t like all the slurry we put on

The forecrop was spring barley, but like 2 out of 3 year it failed in the heavy end of the field. (3-4t /ha on the heavy clay and 7-8t / ha in the rest of the field) This is the reason why there is not much straw to see.

As can be seen on the photos the levers disks on the co4 had troubles to close. We rolled the field right after but i did´t do much of a difference.

 

[normandyfarmer]

Does the GEN Opener reduce the power requirement of a Co drill ? How much horsepower do you need to pull the CO at 11k ?

 

[JDJ]

Does the GEN Opener reduce the power requirement of a Co drill ? How much horsepower do you need to pull the CO at 11k ?

Its almost the same, maybe a litter easy´er. 130 hp on flat land will be more than enough for a 4 meter.
I have 220 hp and whit 1000 kg fertilizer on front link and 2000 kg seed in the drill i´am flying at 14 kph up 15 degrees slopes