In the last few years direct seeders have expended a lot of energy trying to find the right double shoot opener. Lyle Larsen knows something about the frustration of this kind of search, try, redesign, and search again! In the spring of 94 he put a set of Swede openers on his 5000 air drill and after seeding 8000 acres he is still saying only good things about them.
Lyle and his wife Kim farm at Aylsham, 32 kilometers south and east of Nipawin. One of the features that Lyle really likes about the Swede opener is that it puts the seed into a firm moist seed bed. The other paired row openers that he has tried placed the fertilizer first and then tried to rebuild a seed bed. Invariably they dried out to the bottom of the fertilizer channel. Lyle says that when he makes the Swede opener place seed a half an inch into moisture it will still be a half an inch in moisture several days later. This has given him excellent germination.
Another point he emphasized is the low wear rate of these openers. After seeding 8000 acres he says, "these openers aren't wearing to speak of." Lyle will probably change the openers that run in the wheel tracks but the rest of them look like they will seed next year's 4000 acres too! He fully expected to change them after the first year of seeding.
After Lyle first tried the Swede openers he took a wire brush to them to shine them up and they have worked fine for him since. Lyle seeds at four mph and gets good separation of seed and fertilizer. He is especially please with crop response to nitrogen placement. When he was conventionally farming he deep banded anhydrous ammonia in the spring. He noticed crop yellowing as the plant roots went from the seed placed fertilizer to the bands. This deficiency is not noticeable with the Swede opener. He has had no major plugging problem and the bottom of the opener stays clean. In certain conditions dirt will stick to the side of the fertilizer wing but Lyle says it doesn't affect the way the opener seeds.
1992 was the last year that Lyle seeded with a press drill. He says "I got so tired of watching land blowing and trying to find moisture to put seed into that I said there has got to be a better way!" A neighbour with a Flexi-coil airdrill seeded a couple of fields for him that year and they turned out so well he was convinced about the airdrill.
Lyle says he used to seed 2800 acres with 3 four wheel drive tractors. They burned over 250 gal of diesel a day and he was still only covering 140 acres a day with a 30 ft. drill. Now he seeds 4000 acres with two tractors -a 195 hp MFWD tractor pulling a 39 ft. airdrill, and a sprayer tractor. He averages 185 acres seeded a day. Lyle says proudly, "With 3700 acres in the ground I still haven't used up my second 1000 gallon tank of fuel!"
Less stress at seeding time is another major advantage of direct seeding . Lyle says, " with the drill and the sprayer, which operates only part of the time, there is less machinery to service and keep organized in the field."
To add to these benefits Lyle is convinced direct seeding is good for his land. He farms a mixture of soils. Some of it is sandy to peaty land. Lyle says this is the only way to farm peat land. He also has some loam and some with more clay content. He says even after only three years of direct seeding his ground takes less draft to seed into. The hardest pulling field he seeded this year was a piece of conventionally tilled summerfallow he just took on. In comparison the stubble 'worked nice'.
Direct seeding hasn't been all a bed of roses for Lyle. Besides the frustrations of finding the right opener, dandelions have also been a difficult weed problem. Lyle feels he may have the solution with post harvest Roundup. It appears to have sure worked good on the fields he sprayed last fall. He is also considering purchasing a four wheel drive high clearance sprayer. He is hoping to put a lot of Roundup on in the fall and avoid the need for spring burn off. There may be some problems but Lyle wouldn't consider going back to conventional farming.