Calc looks accurate. I've had bad luck overseeding, do you have experience doing it previously? Do you suppress the active growing grasses to help the overseeding get started? Planted 5 acres last year under seeded - Timothy and rye, so far looks like the geese destroyed all the rye last fall, crossing fingers it will still establish ok.

 

Never get what I had hoped for but there is definitely an improvement in the stand. At my age I am no longer willing to do a month and a half of rock pickup that results from conventional tillage so i could use a Brillion sure stand. However, that said, I keep plunking along trying to increase my stand density and provide better natural weed control through grass competition. Even with the cold, it seems like I got a pretty decent return on my investment this year. The irritating part of no till seeding is the missed spots with no apparent explanation. Slot right next to it has good seedling stand with virtually zero in the other. Makes no sense, depth is the same, speed is the same, seed is the same, weather is the same, fertilization is the same, effective germination is not the same. If you want good odds on a new seedling each inch in a row, you have to increase overseeding rate to 10# each way, which is expensive.

to your questions Slow, I have done a lot of overseeding, do not suppress but try to get grass height at a low point (will clip or mow low in Oct just before overseeding and jump on it after baling. I have my own drill in partnership with one other person because the coop drill was always dirty, out of adjustment with multiple compromised parts and it was very difficult to get it the day you wanted it. With this one that we own, we keep fine tuning the depth and keep it clean. It is practically new so springs are good as are coulters.

 

Do you think that it could be momentary bridging causing your skips?

Regards, Mike

 

Not sure Mike, looks like it feeds fine to the metering wheel, any time I have checked it which has been often, the cups are full charged. I think more probable is build up in the expanding drop tubing. I have never seen a wad of seedlings that would be evidence of a pile drop. I would like to replace the tubes with Tygon smooth tubing but haven’t figured out how to address the two different heights (raised and lowered). They would have to telescope and Tygon doesn’t slide well

 

I remember FarmerCline talking about his Deere no-till 1590 would bridge in the drop tubes on occasion. Seems like he said that he did catch it a time or two on a slope doing this. Spiders may have had some webbing in the tubes causing an occasional temporary back-up.

 

I think what it does is builds up rather than bridging in the corrugations then dumps when jiggled by being raised or rough terrain. Hard to watch that while you are driving the tractor but I have definitely seen the build up drop out of the tubes when cleaning the drill at the end of the day. No cobwebs or mud dobbers. I blow my tubes with compressed air each day I use it to make sure it is clean. It is really frustrating to spend that much money on a drill and have that issue. It would be nice if it had some type of hydraulic sensing for down pressure as well. Moisture ranges a lot in a field and I notice a lot of variation in how deep the coulters go and how well the press wheels close based on local moisture content. You can't adjust for the range, you just have to do the best you can. Next to the woods is a killer.

 

Hitting your drop tubes daily with compressed air is good practice. I'd be surprised if a clear drop tube clogs with your fescue seed.

 

I don't think it ever clogs, once the indentions in the expanding tubes are empty of seed, they have to fill up again which may cause the gap in seeding. Now why it is on one row and not another, that's a puzzle.

 

Most of the little over-seeding / add on box set ups seem to blow air down the tubes even when they could just drop seed. I wonder if preventing the tube hang ups are the reason for that.

I've only seen them for sale, never got ahold of one. We ended up buying a small seed box off a drill to try mounting on a cultipacker but was thinking of dropping on ground instead of adding seed tubes.