Maize Drills

[Whynot]

looking to buy a new maize drill for next season.
We're looking to drill approx 500 acres for our AD plant and while we have been VERY pleased with our contractor, we would like the flexibility to drill when we wanted. Probably following a 6m power harrow so 70ish acres a day.
Contractors currently use 8row Trailed Kverneland drills. Have priced one of those up but also like the Vaderstaad Tempo. Might go for 6 row mounted one with smaller tractor with correct wheel spacings to avoid wheelings.
While comparing two drills at Cereals was particularly impressed with build quality of Vaderstaad and the ability to drill at faster speed.

Any comments/ideas?!

 

[snowhite]

our contractor has a 6 row monosem on the back of 4.5m power horrow , we have a 4 row monosem on a 3m powerharrow with decompactor , so you coulp put 8 row on the back of a 6m ,

 

[BLG]

looking to buy a new maize drill for next season.
We're looking to drill approx 500 acres for our AD plant and while we have been VERY pleased with our contractor, we would like the flexibility to drill when we wanted. Probably following a 6m power harrow so 70ish acres a day.
Contractors currently use 8row Trailed Kverneland drills. Have priced one of those up but also like the Vaderstaad Tempo. Might go for 6 row mounted one with smaller tractor with correct wheel spacings to avoid wheelings.
While comparing two drills at Cereals was particularly impressed with build quality of Vaderstaad and the ability to drill at faster speed.

Any comments/ideas?!

I just posted a comment in "iPad and Vaddy" thread in the Precision section on the Tempo that we have. Feel free to ask me anything else.

 

[Charlie M]

First year with a maize drill for us, was undecided like you. Narrowed it down between 8 row vaderstad tempo or amazone edx. Liked that they are both high speed, so that if needed I could drill 50-70 acre in the morning then chop grass etc in afternoon. Went for the EDX in then end for a few reasons, mounted so it's more precise, single seed hopper, don't have trouble with half full seed hoppers, especially with individual row shut off, overall build quality.
Was nervous of the tempo, or more the iPad wireless control which they were pushing, ok when new but what if it starts going wrong in 5 or 10 years time when out of warranty.
Could drill happily away at 14kph with very accurate seed placing and no misses.

 

[vinnie123]

Had a six row mounted tempo new for this season. Very simple to use . Seed placement is brilliant and if something is wrong you are aware in seconds. Fert system is good although would specify agitator and don't like the fact there's only one low fert sensor at one side of hopper. The drill is bloody wide ! 11 foot ish ! Having never drilled maize before I drilled 500 acres and sprayer man ain't found a balls up yet! As far as high speed drilling is concerned I think to go much above 12/13k for any length of time you need a steering system of some sort, I just had the steering wheel never mind any gizmos and found 12k a nice speed that you could keep at all day long and not be chucked about the cab like a rag doll! All the 18 k maize drillers must have billiard table seed beds to go into! averaged about 8 acres/hour in decent sized fields.

 

[vinnie123]

wheels were in between rows which definitely helped also if your not putting fert on you can swing the coulters out of work in about two minutes and the drill pulls a hell of a lot easier then. Oh and I wouldn't be wasting your money on I pad nonsense, normal vaddy box is perfectly adequate for the job

 

[snowhite]

we use the power harrow at the same time cuts down compaction the ground and one less pass

 

[BLG]

Had a six row mounted tempo new for this season. Very simple to use . Seed placement is brilliant and if something is wrong you are aware in seconds. Fert system is good although would specify agitator and don't like the fact there's only one low fert sensor at one side of hopper. The drill is bloody wide ! 11 foot ish ! Having never drilled maize before I drilled 500 acres and sprayer man ain't found a balls up yet! As far as high speed drilling is concerned I think to go much above 12/13k for any length of time you need a steering system of some sort, I just had the steering wheel never mind any gizmos and found 12k a nice speed that you could keep at all day long and not be chucked about the cab like a rag doll! All the 18 k maize drillers must have billiard table seed beds to go into! averaged about 8 acres/hour in decent sized fields.

I agree re the speed, 14km/hr was about the fastest I could go without bouncing about, but thats still a lot faster than others at 8km. I also agree about the fert sensor, I put a camera in there on a magnet and then put it on the back to see behind when going down the road. If I could I would use a iPad, after speaking to those who have one, they wouldn't go back.

 

[vinnie123]

I agree re the speed, 14km/hr was about the fastest I could go without bouncing about, but thats still a lot faster than others at 8km. I also agree about the fert sensor, I put a camera in there on a magnet and then put it on the back to see behind when going down the road. If I could I would use a iPad, after speaking to those who have one, they wouldn't go back.

Out of interest what camera were you using?

 

[james ds]

Samco have the market sowed up here , seem to be a very well built drill and can put on plastic as well.

 

[vinnie123]

Can you please explain to me the financial ins and outs of putting maize under plastic? I cannot see it stacking up around here anyway( Dorset ) . Not being sarcastic but it just seems crazily expensive.

 

[Steevo]

Can you please explain to me the financial ins and outs of putting maize under plastic? I cannot see it stacking up around here anyway( Dorset ) . Not being sarcastic but it just seems crazily expensive.

Couldn't agree more. As I understand it the plastic costs £100/ac so you need quite a bit of extra crop to recoup that.

 

[vinnie123]

I stand to be corrected but as I see it drilling is £50/acre, plastic is 60/ acre . So as I see it £95/ acre dearer than normal precision drill. Approx cost of production for forage maize @£20/ton means 5 tons extra required before any benefit. This is based on being in south of England in a normally good maize growing area, I can sort of see benefit in marginal areas but perhaps a good crop of wheat would give similar results for less money? This is just my fag packet maths and happy to be told different .

 

[Barleycorn]

When we grew maize we just put it in with the Moore. I thought the only reason to pee about with precision drills was when we had torpedo headers. Once you had Kemper types of headers row width/spacing didn't matter. I know one big farm that puts it in with an air drill on 3 inch spacing, gets good crops.

 

[Deerejon]

Having used a samco plastic drill and a conventional maize/fert. My personal thoughts are the samco for drilling as a animal feed crop drill is a waste of time, and expensive. The benefits of the samco system come in grain maize, where in a poor weather year it can be the difference between getting a good first wheat crop to follow, compared with a slightly slower establishment of conventional drilled. It's also an expensive bit of kit to run, with a lower daily output compared to a normal drill. The samco seems a much bigger hit in Ireland than over here.