We farm south of Purdue. Our farm consists of about 3200 acres of loam to sandy-loam soil, which is in conjunction with a commercial cow/calf operation. We grow wheat, two-row barley (hopefully for malt), canola, peas and lentils, along with alfalfa and feed grains for the cattle.
We purchased a 36-foot Prasco airseeder in 1989. I wanted to get something with less soil disturbance than the discers we were using at the time. We started off using sweeps on the airseeder and pulling a Flexi-Coil packer. After a couple of years, I started changing things. I wanted to further reduce the soil disturbance, so I switched to a three inch Bourgault spoon. Y then bought a set of Bourgault in-row packers to match up with the shanks on the cultivator.
I wasn't happy with the groove made by the three-inch spoon as it was wider than the press wheels, but it did spread out the seed and fertilizer. A couple of years ago, I met Dallas Skyman from Hamiota, Manitoba. He was taking a Bourgault spoon and cutting the point off. He then welded on a bracket that would accept a Gen point mounted on it. The Gen point cuts a groove about 3/4 to 1 inch wide and stays in the soil at a constant depth. These openers line up with the press wheels much better, providing better soil to seed contact. I was concerned about the twelve-inch wide spacing, but I soon got over that as I noticed larger heads and higher yields in wheat. The Gen points on the spoons are lasting 5,000-6,000 acres before having to change them. With the spoons alone, I would be lucky to get 1,000 acres out of them in our soil type.
There were other changes that I made. I was having trouble with plugging at the manifold when seeding peas or other grains and fertilizer at high volumes. I bought a set of Morris flat manifolds and they have worked very well. I mounted a Flexi-Coil auger to fill the tanks. This worked much better than trying to fill the tanks with a drill fill. I also mounted an SED monitor system to monitor the flow on the back row of shanks on the cultivator and I mounted a fill indicator in the tank.
Overall, I have invested about $25,000 into the airseeder. This outfit has worked very well for me. However, I think I could use more packing on the rows on the lighter soils. I hope that in the future, when commodity prices improve, we will switch to an air drill.