MF30 drill advice

[690 multi-power]

Hi, A local guy has offered me his MF30 drill, 3 meter 23 row narrow spacing (4 3/8" or 111mm) at a reasonable price. It is not end tow but has the tramlines and eradicators and is quite clean.
I have only ever used a 3 meter standard spacing (6 7/8" or 175mm) MF30 to cover our small acreage and I was wondering if it was worth buying to sow tighter rows of spring cereals???
Ideally I would like to sow one field (half with one drill and half with the narrow) just to see for myself if there are any benefits to either drill but if the vote leans towards "it's not worth it" i will appreciate it. Thanks

 

[Mrs Brown]

Are you running discs or Suffolk coulters?

 

[bobk]

Hi, A local guy has offered me his MF30 drill, 3 meter 23 row narrow spacing (4 3/8" or 111mm) at a reasonable price. It is not end tow but has the tramlines and eradicators and is quite clean.
I have only ever used a 3 meter standard spacing (6 7/8" or 175mm) MF30 to cover our small acreage and I was wondering if it was worth buying to sow tighter rows of spring cereals???
Ideally I would like to sow one field (half with one drill and half with the narrow) just to see for myself if there are any benefits to either drill but if the vote leans towards "it's not worth it" i will appreciate it. Thanks

My 4m has 23 discs , don't make any difference to yield , if it gets it in right .

 

[690 multi-power]

My old standard drill has disc’s but the narrow has Suffolk coulters.
Will it make much difference as I still plough rather than try to direct drill

 

[bobk]

My old standard drill has disc’s but the narrow has Suffolk coulters.
Will it make much difference as I still plough rather than try to direct drill

.

They don't do dd .... do dee .

 

[Mrs Brown]

Just that discs have a tendancy to try and go off centre while the Suffolk is a straight pull and on close spacing would be more even row spacings. We have had two MF30 drills ,first one was four meter with discs and the one we run now has suffolks which I think make a more even job but we are on light land and power harrow after the plough both were 5 1/8" spacings. I would say go for it if its in better order than your present one and the other guy isn't asking a kings ransom.

 

[Mrs Brown]

Another thing to look for is on newer drills the metering units had 10 flute feed rollers set in a spiral and gave a much evener flow of seed than the old 5 flute ones

 

[690 multi-power]

.

They don't do dd .... do dee .

I know it was a joke. Enjoying a nice bottle of red on a Sunday evening

 

[690 multi-power]

Another thing to look for is on newer drills the metering units had 10 flute feed rollers set in a spiral and gave a much evener flow of seed than the old 5 flute ones

Ah good point. I will check this out tomorrow. Thanks for the tips

 

[Brisel]

Hi, A local guy has offered me his MF30 drill, 3 meter 23 row narrow spacing (4 3/8" or 111mm) at a reasonable price. It is not end tow but has the tramlines and eradicators and is quite clean.
I have only ever used a 3 meter standard spacing (6 7/8" or 175mm) MF30 to cover our small acreage and I was wondering if it was worth buying to sow tighter rows of spring cereals???
Ideally I would like to sow one field (half with one drill and half with the narrow) just to see for myself if there are any benefits to either drill but if the vote leans towards "it's not worth it" i will appreciate it. Thanks

It will make no difference to the yield of spring cereals IMO. If you look at the wider tine drills like the Horsch, Claydon & Mzuri their row spacing is far wider than that. My Claydon is 13" then sows a double row, so the gap between the rows with 7" A shares gets down to 8" with no loss of yield vs a 5" Vaderstad Rapid. If you were wanting to so a lot of grass seed it would be a different matter.

 

[Hooby Farmer]

Aye go for it, good drill. Neighbours have one, they used to do 3/400 acres with it until they got a once pass last year. I have one close spacing it does a good job, the only thing I don't like about mine is the tramline kit that runs off the wheel doesn't always activate so you have to keep an eye.

 

[Nearly]

@JLTate

 

[690 multi-power]

Thanks.
What about narrow rows keeping weeds like black grass to a minimum. This could help keep our spray costs down which would be a big bonus.
The fight against the rabbits is the next battle as we seem to have hundreds this year

 

[fastfish]

Be careful of the disc variety we had one that would move a lot of soil to the middle especially if tempted to go too fast , this would then take longer to come through and the slugs would run this area

 

[Wombat]

We have a 4m with 31 discs. I certainly wouldn’t have Suffolk coulters, pointless bloody things on heavy land.

 

[Mrs Brown]

We have a 4m with 31 discs. I certainly wouldn’t have Suffolk coulters, pointless bloody things on heavy land.

Much better on light land though, as fast fish says the discs tend to move the soil too much and on narrow row width it might just be a problem.

 

[Wombat]

Much better on light land though, as fast fish says the discs tend to move the soil too much and on narrow row width it might just be a problem.

Yes but i just run the discs at light pressure on our lighter land. Heavy land we run at max pressure into discing.

 

[690 multi-power]

Picked it up yesterday. It’s very clean and has an abundance of spares with it. Will post some pic’s next

 

[Mrs Brown]

We have a 4m with 31 discs. I certainly wouldn’t have Suffolk coulters, pointless bloody things on heavy land.

Have you ever renewed the points as they ware quite quick .

 

[690 multi-power]

I cant say i have but inside it is full of spares including a new set of points, pipes, acre clock belts, wooden pegs and some other bits