Ernest Holinaty, grain producer from Porcupine Plain, likes the challenges of making direct seeding work. One of the tools he has found to improve seeding efficiency in his operation is disk levelers.
In our interview he tells about one flax crop of his that most farmers would classify as a wreck. The dandelions look really bad and you can't see the flax beneath the stubble. Preharvest was out last year because the crop was malt barley and the burn-off this spring didn't make the rain fast period. Ernest says most farmers with "a white shirt and a green tractor" would turn to summerfallow to fix this field. He hopes and schemes to reap a crop off this field and maybe even an average producing one at that!
Ernest started direct seeding some of his acreage in 1992 with a Concord seeding system. His direct seeding acres have been increasing each year until last when more than half of his crop was direct seeded and this year all of it was direct seeded. He started off with 12 in. row spacing but has now gone to 10 in. He was hoping the narrower spacing would leave a smoother finish but is not sure there is any significant difference. His openers are McKay deep penetrator shovels cut to 5.75 in. wide at the toe and tapered back to about 2.5 in. wide at the shank. He stresses that this angle reduces the amount of soil thrown to the side. The Froc boot he uses does a good job of distributing product evenly across the width of cut underneath the lift this opener provides.
Similar to many direct seeders in the northeast Ernest relies on the heavy harrow in his direct seeding operation. Weather permitting he will harrow most of his acres in the fall. Also depending on weather he bands some 46-0-0 in the fall with a narrow knife opener. In the spring he may harrow to dry out land if it is too wet. He also likes to harrow before seeding small seeded crops to break up residue lumps.
Ernest has had good success at doing some topdressing. On the cereal fields he doesn't band in the fall he is single shooting 70 lbs. of N, 25 lbs. of P20, and 8 lbs. of K20. He will go up to 50 lbs. of N with his flax but he doesn't like exceeding 20 lbs. of N with his canola. He is then topdressing another 40 - 70 lbs. of N with 21-0-0-24 fines. He says if he gets the right buy he can purchase this N cheaper than 46-0-0 and the sulfur is free.
Another one of the less well known techniques Ernest uses in his direct seeding system is disk levelers. He has been using them for 2 years now and has been extremely happy with them for several reasons. One of these is that they leave the field finish much smoother. Along with this he says that they level out residue that tends to bunch without the levelers. Another important benefit is that he is able to travel up to 7 mph and still get these smoother fields with even shallow seed placement onto firm moist soil.
Ernest mentions that setup of the disk levelers is critical in deciding the angle the disks need to run at. He has his set at only 2 - 3o toed out from straight forward and this seems to do good job for 5 mph and faster. He goes on to say these disks are very flexible. They follow the contour of the ground up and down because they are hinged. They are also spring loaded to a side force. At 7 mph. they tend to run against this spring which means they run even straighter than the 2 - 3o angle he sets them for.
Even though they are "pricey" Ernest says, "They are worth the money because of the improved efficiencies in time, field appearance and field condition."