Paired Row vs. Side Band Openers

By Garry Mayerle,

SSCA Soil Conservationist

Why do so many direct seeders continue to use paired row openers when sideband double shoot openers give better separation? Many producers still have several reasons for wanting a wider seed row and are ready to sacrifice a degree of separation for that spread. In the northern grain producing belt of Saskatchewan a lot of producers still swath some or all of their cereals and they want plenty of stubble to hold up their swaths. A good question to ask is how much better are paired row openers at holding up swaths?

At first glance most paired row openers look like they would give you a seed row 2 to 3 times wider than a side band opener. The typical side band opener looks like it should place the seed in a tight 1inch band. Your typical narrow paired row opener looks like it should give you 2 neat 1 inch rows of grain 2 to 3 inches apart. In actuality we have observed that most of the paired row openers give you more of a scatter across their width of cut. This is of course a generality and maybe there is a paired row opener out there that will leave 2 defined rows in all of the types of soil that you farm. However, our observations are that under at least some conditions you do not get that neat well defined split row with most paired row openers. Some of the seeds are landing in the middle of the row where higher concentrations of fertilizer are also being placed. In fact in some situations 2 well defined rows may be produced because this high concentration of fertilizer is keeping the seeds in the middle of the row from growing. Different soil conditions and soil flow around the opener probably affect the type of separation any opener gives. It only stands to reason however, that if you are only disturbing the soil off to one side of the fertilizer band you have a lot less chance of getting seeds falling in the fertilizer row. In addition many of the side band openers place the seed a little further away from the fertilizer band because they have a longer wing.

To evaluate how your openers are doing it is a good idea to do some plant counts several weeks after emergence. When you are out checking your crops for spraying take along a yard or meter stick throw it down on 5 different rows and count the plants. Take the numbers home do the math and compare them to researcher Guy Lafond's recommendations to see how you are doing. It sounds onerous but once you are setup it is really not that bad.

TARGET PLANT POPULATIONS

Guy Lafond - Indian Head Research Farm

For the last three growing seasons SSCA has been running Direct Seeding Do's & Don'ts Demonstration Plots. At about half our sites this year we compared 3 Stealth heavy soil paired row openers on 12 in. row spacing to Stealth side band openers. We also had one treatment at these sites with the Stealth 3 in. spread tip. To evaluate the ability of the stubble to hold up a swath I compared the average width of the row of stubble seeded with the different openers. The width was measured at the cut height after harvesting and all the trials were spring wheat. The two plots that I looked at were from our Naicam site and the Conservation Learning Centre site (CLC). Measurements were not taken at the Melfort site because there had been a lot of lodging and harvesting was done with a plot combine leaving a lot of tracking.

The Naicam plot was cut at about 7 in. high. In photo 1 see the stubble row from one side band opener on the right side of the picture and then the stubble from three paired row openers on the left side. At this height the paired row opener was leaving a stubble row width of 3 - 5 in. In comparison the side bander was leaving stubble 2 - 4 in. wide.

The other two photos were taken at the CLC. In photo 2 the 3 rows on the right side of the meter stick were seeded with the paired row opener and to the left of that was the side band opener. These plots were cut shorter at 4 - 5 in. high. Average width of the stubble row at this height seeded with the paired row opener was 5 in. while the side band opener stubble row width was 4 in. In the photo there certainly isn't much difference between the rows. Photo 3 shows the treatment with the 3 in. spread tip. This trial was cut 5 - 6 in. high and average width of the stubble row was 4 - 5 in.

In conclusion from observations made last fall the paired row opener gave a 1 inch wider stubble row. Average stubble row widths for the paired row were 3 - 5 in. wide and for the side band opener were 2 - 4 in. wide. The stubble coming out of that narrow side band row is spreading out very close to the ground. The paired row opener is on average giving you a 30% wider stubble row than the side band row but certainly isn't doubling or tripling the width of that row.