Horsch sprinter

[Alistair Nelson]

Been looking at a horsch sprinter today and have been thinking about using 1 for dd rape with fert in main hopper and then seed with a broadcaster and then for cereals ranging from min till to on ploughing and possibly opportunity to dd. horsch have a rape coulter for this exact application. Anybody have any experience?

What are peoples experienced dd ing and in general of the sprinter. Are the gen or Dutch coulters that much of an improvement and what are there main benefits?

Also like the idea of the full width front roller option am I right?

Cheers

Alistair

 

[Steevo]

Have a Sprinter here which DD's all crops. Very pleased indeed with it and the crops it creates.

Quite like your idea of fert placement prior to rape, sounds very clever. If we didn't use poultry litter then I'd certainly consider doing just that. Though might also be tempted to try spinning the fert on first before planting, to make sure it was buried as it might work out as effective, and cheaper.

 

[Alistair Nelson]

Are you on the std points and boot assembly's? What size and spec is your drill?

 

[Steevo]

Absolute standard 4m drill, nothing special other than blockage sensors.

 

[binbusy]

We moved over to the sprinter this spring, seems a fantastic drill and cant say ive ever seen our spring crops look so well!
I direct drilled over 150 acres of spring beans using the standard duets into stubbles and they look fantastic. On top of that ive direct drilled allot of grass into old grass leys.
Before we bought the drill I drilled some spring barley onto freshly ploughed land with no other cultivations before, this was crucial for the drill to be able to do for the land after sugar beet.

 

[dontknowanything]

Duetts are horrible IMO. Not only do they make your drill into a weed chitting machine, they compact the soil directly where the seed goes.

 

[Jellyfarm]

4M sprinter here. Have mounted stocks turbo jet for slug pellets(we already had it for osr on subsoiler) but are thinking of just what op has said about fert in main hopper.
I don't think it is the best drill on ploughing as no individual coulter depth control, but ok if you get it firm enough.
I have ordered some Dutch industries coulters to try for osr and beans to see how we get on.
Main idea for osr though is to use solo coulter fitting with point and 2 tungsten tiles and blow seed 6" behind similar to Fred's set up. I want to have both options of moving 4-6" soil ahead of seed or dd with dutch ind. at 1". In other words a strip till idea where necessary.
Either way will drill osr in 25cm rows to improve bg control.
Overall I think its a well put together drill offering great flexibility on level ground to establish crops using a few different coulters.
J

 

[binbusy]

Duetts are horrible IMO. Not only do they make your drill into a weed chitting machine, they compact the soil directly where the seed goes.

We had problems with chemical damage on low till. Ive got OSR taken off by ally and wheat taken off be kerb. I need soil movement to solve this problem.
Weed wise I spray whatever, im not organic and couldn't give a dam whether Im killing 10 plants per square meter or 100 plants I always get sufficient kill so cant see a problem myself.

 

[dontknowanything]

We had problems with chemical damage on low till. Ive got OSR taken off by ally and wheat taken off be kerb. I need soil movement to solve this problem.
Weed wise I spray whatever, im not organic and couldn't give a dam whether Im killing 10 plants per square meter or 100 plants I always get sufficient kill so cant see a problem myself.

You're going to get soil movement with a tine drill regardless, it's not a 750a!

I believe weed control is usually a % of plants, not an absolute number. So 99% control on 100 plants is better than on 1000.

 

[binbusy]

Well whatever, I don't have the problem you are referring to.

 

[dontknowanything]

Well whatever, I don't have the problem you are referring to.

What, you never have weeds?! Less weeds has to be a good thing in anyone's book? Not to mention lower draught requirement with a narrower tine.

 

[binbusy]

Yes I have weeds, just don't have a problem killing them. I find Nozzles, speed and timeliness is the key. Why do you have problems?

 

[dontknowanything]

Yes I have weeds, just don't have a problem killing them. I find Nozzles, speed and timeliness is the key. Why do you have problems?

Not generally big problems, but very rarely have fields with no weeds at all, and less is better.

 

[Steevo]

I'm in a similar situation to @binbusy. No problems at all with weeds in crops after the Sprinter. Not a single blackgrass head across our acreage, despite it being a major weed here. I'm not trying to justify the drill to anyone, but I'm happy with it, it works for us and I'm proud of the crops it produces.

 

[H.Jackson]

Duetts are horrible IMO. Not only do they make your drill into a weed chitting machine, they compact the soil directly where the seed goes.

Have to agree here having swithed to GEN openers we see less of this few bald patches this year despite 25mm plus rain bursts following drilling.

Think @Clive's latest article in practical farming ideas gives the best demonstration I've seen of how a 750A works really need to give one a proper go here to find out if it can work here.

Even then I think the Sprinter would stay it copes with stones and with a full width front packer can drill on after a tine pass no packer and get us drilled up against the odds, pretty much given up on the idea of one drill does all.

 

[Wheatland]

I am thinking about ordering a new sprinter to replace an ageing CO4. I was wondering if I should order it without coulters and put Dutch openers on. Any views on this?

 

[Andrew K]

Do the Dutch ones cover as wide a band width, wide gaps between rows = blackgrass unless you can hoe it out?

 

[dontknowanything]

Do the Dutch ones cover as wide a band width, wide gaps between rows = blackgrass unless you can hoe it out?

Only in a cultivated system

 

[Jellyfarm]

I am thinking about ordering a new sprinter to replace an ageing CO4. I was wondering if I should order it without coulters and put Dutch openers on. Any views on this?

I think this is an interesting question - however I don't know the answer! In my own mind though I suspect the answer may be 'Yes' as you can then change easily between different openers for different crops/conditions.

J

 

[Jellyfarm]

Further to the duett coulter remarks made above, I think the choice of mounting holes on our sprinter compared to the fixed single set on the CO drill we had, gives some improvement to the angle the base plate sits at and therefore the 'smarming' (is that really a word) effect in wet conditions, but I still have some reservations with the duet as others do.

As regards the weed chitting - by comparison with a disc drill the sprinter drills the seed over a greater amount of soil. So I think it then becomes a moved soil versus ground cover/competition debate. I am referring to non-DD but better ground cover quicker with spinter vs pottinger disc drill in our trial last autumn.

J