STP ‘saw-tooth’ opener blades
by Matt Hagny The Exapta crew has gotten quite a few questions from our customers as to Precision Tillage Tech’s STP/Sabre-Tooth opener blades, so we tested them this spring [2019] on a JD 1770 planter with XP row units in central Kansas in 25-year no-till on mellow...
read moreIntroducing Exapta’s weight brackets for JD 3-section air drills
Many of you in North America are fighting mud, and might find it difficult to contemplate needing more frame weight at the moment. But we’ve been down this road before—when it stops raining and gets sunny & hot, the soil goes from too soft to too hard in a matter...
read moreFrame bolt breakage on JD air drills
If you have a JD drill where the rear transport wheel frame is held together as shown in the photo, you probably are constantly replacing broken bolts. We’ve found that using a pair of shorter bolts instead of a single long bolt in those spots pretty much eliminates...
read moreDo seed-applied fungicides harm mycorrhizae?
by Matt Hagny It seems to be the latest trend amongst the Regenerative Ag folks to stop using seed-applied fungicides for fear of what they might be doing to the soil ecology, particularly mycorrhizae (see my previous newsletter on this —my agronomy consulting is dba...
read morePaying attention pays off!
This no-till cotton field was planted with 2 different planters, 2 operators. The arrow is the dividing line. The planters were both equipped with Keetons + Mojos, new opener blades, etc. The one on the RH side had Thompson closing wheels with toe-out wedges, the...
read moreSoybean Stand Uniformity: Does It Matter?
by Matt Hagny Soybeans into cc oats in central KS, seeded with a JD 1560 drill with upgraded seed boots (90-series), SDX firming wheels, Thompson closing wheels. We tend to be rather complacent about soybean stand uniformity—non-uniform distance between plants as well...
read morePlanter Downforce, Depth Settings, and Levelness
by Matt Hagny If you have new blades on a Deere planter with the depth mechanism set as shown in this photo, the furrow being cut should be 2” deep consistently. If it’s less than that, you don’t have enough downforce on the row unit. (For corn, sunflowers, and...
read more‘Cover-Plate’ Wear on JD 60/90/Pro-series Drills
by Matt Hagny If you notice a lot of wear on the depth-adjustment mechanism (the plate with the notches in it, as well as the knob), it’s probably a sign you’re not running enough downforce on the openers. If you don’t have enough downforce (whether that’s OEM or with...
read moreResistant Weeds: Tillage vs Technology (including WEEDit)
by Matt Hagny, freelance agronomic consultant since '94 [Originally written Nov 2017; updated March 2019] Palmer amaranth, waterhemp, marestail, kochia in many regions are now resistant to glyphosate and several other herbicide modes of action. This has prompted some...
read moreDeere ‘Pro’-series NT drills: Worth it?
by Matt Hagny We’ve been waiting decades for Deere to come out with improvements to their 90-series no-till drill openers. Now that it’s finally happened, it’s mostly a yawn—almost everything has already been surpassed in aftermarket products. For instance, Deere is...
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