I farm about 1200 acres including pasture on the edge of the Red River Valley. We live about 35 miles northwest of Fargo in west Cass county. In1981 I started experimenting with a new set of John Deere drills and other than the chaff row problem they worked quite well. Since then I have rented or borrowed a number of seeders including a Concord, Haybuster 8000 and 1000 drills and a Case IH bean drill mounted on a Yetter coulter cart. The local soil district rented out drills for a few years. This helped considerably the learning process. Cost sharing from an LTA also helped defray some rental costs, etc.

The winter of 1992 I purchased a used Great Plains drill mounted on a Tye coulter cart. Renting is ok but ownership permits more acres to be planted on a timely basis. This was a 6" drill with a 4" stagger when purchased. I changed it to a 7" by 7" spacing primarily for trash clearance in corn ground. This drill also has a fertilizer attachment which I feel is essential to successful stand establishment in cold wet soils. Both the Case IH and Great Plains have one opener disc ahead of the other. This design allows for easier ground penetration and less hairpinning. The coulter cart concept was designed in the early '70's for planting beans into corn ground.

The drill exceeded my expectations in some very difficult planting conditions this year. Doing nothing is surely the cheapest way to deal with corn stalks. Most of the soils on the farm are silt clay looms with some Fargo silt clay loam in a few areas. The lower flat spots can be quite sticky and are subject to water infiltration problems. Some type of subsoil is also an important consideration when assessing the productive capability and manage-ability of a field. Except for the sand ridges most of the subsoils on the farm are a yellow clay or a gray loam which have a fairly high water holding capability. There doesn't seem to be a bottom in some of these soils when they are full of water such as what occurred last spring. I have had to wait a day or two compared to conventional tillage for the ground to firm up.

We get enough rain in our area to grow many crops. I raise wheat, barley, sunflowers, corn, soybeans and alfalfa. The Great Plains drill successfully seeded into most of these crops in 1993, even in very wet conditions. As long as the drill didn't sink away altogether it would continue to seed. As mentioned before, waiting a day two helped.

The residue levels can be rather high in the wheat and cornfields. I have to be certain the chaff and straw are being spread properly. If the straw is damp or tough the fins on the chopper need to be set so as not to create windrows. This fall I took the sickle sections out of the chopper for corn harvest last year there were heavy trash rows because the chopper had been taken off even though the combine only harvests 12 feet.

Rotations are an important consideration on the heavier ground. The proper rotation will better utilize the water available and can ease planting difficulties wheat on sunflowers or barley on corn ground.

The hoe type drills used in the past warmed the ground faster because of greater disturbance. I may switch to wide coulters on the cart, especially for seeding grain on grain or for beans on wheat, if frost is a concern. One other thing I have noticed about disc drill is that the wetter the conditioner heavier the soil, the more critical seeding depth becomes. The sandier ground seems to be more forgiving on seeding depth, although it can be harder to hold the drill out of the ground.

I don't feel the heavier soils encountered in some fields are a detriment to no till farming. The productive capacity of any soil can be maintained or improved with proper residue management.