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Sears Danville Manufacturing Planter Seeder questions

6K views 14 replies 5 participants last post by  Lauber1 
#1 ·
Hi.

A couple of years ago I bought a 3 point planter for my Sears Suburban with the idea of planting corn with it. I had previously used an earthway but was not happy with seed spacing or placement and had gone back to planting by hand. The planter came with only one plate, which according to the manual was for corn. I had all the sprockets in the appropriate locations according to the manual. After planting, placement was spotty. It planted heavy in areas and no seeds in others. My soil was fairly fine and should have planted easily. Am I needing a different plate? Would a Brinly/Cole or Planet Jr seeder work better? I have been told by some non-GT guys, that for a planter to work right, you need the hopper to be fairly full. That would require much more seed to be purchased than is required for my small plot.

Thank you for any suggestions!

Chris
 

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#4 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi I have the same seeder (David Bradley) and got the same results when doing test trials last spring, what I thought was happening is the seed holes were to large for some kernels and it would pickup 2 or 3 seeds and drop them at once thus the thick planting at other times it didn't pickup any seeds. In discussing this with my brothers and others that farmed back in the 50's 60's etc is that back then seed corn was sorted by size and when you bought seed you got a size you wanted and it was all the same so a seed plate work with the advent of the air flow planters seed sizes vary so the old plates don't work that well, don't know if this is the problem but it kind on made sense to me. So I used my earthway seeder and it didn't really do any better.
 
#5 ·
Hi I have the same seeder (David Bradley) and got the same results when doing test trials last spring, what I thought was happening is the seed holes were to large for some kernels and it would pickup 2 or 3 seeds and drop them at once thus the thick planting at other times it didn't pickup any seeds. In discussing this with my brothers and others that farmed back in the 50's 60's etc is that back then seed corn was sorted by size and when you bought seed you got a size you wanted and it was all the same so a seed plate work with the advent of the air flow planters seed sizes vary so the old plates don't work that well, don't know if this is the problem but it kind on made sense to me. So I used my earthway seeder and it didn't really do any better.
Kind of what I was afraid of. Wondering if I needed to jerry-rig a JD 7000 finger pickup row unit to a sleeve hitch, or if I should just go back to planting by hand. Didn't even do a garden the in the last two years but miss playing in the dirt.
 
#6 ·
That looks like the planter that I have for the DB TriTrac . Does yours have 2 compartments for the seeds ? Or do people put in more a spacer ? Maybe a different seed plate would be better . Never used mine
 

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#7 ·
I use one of my types almost every yr. Vertical plate seeders are difficult to set right some time due to the poor sizing done by the seed companies. Another problem is sometimes the drive wheel stops turning due to lack of ground pressure. Also with this type of seeder you can get seed behind the plate which will stop it from turning. I always carpet test the seed on the garage floor first to place sure I have the correct plate, of which there were 8 originally. I only plant corn with mine these days, since its the only thing you have to singulate, peas, beans and other small seeds a re better off drilled, which is what the Planet jr seeders were designed to do. Heres this yrs corns plated with the push style, Danville.

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Plant Grass Groundcover Agriculture Terrestrial plant
 

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#9 ·
Hi lauber1, you have the planter zeroed in that's a good looking corn patch, now I recall someone posted that push type tends to do better also. While my corn spacing didn't look as good we did get about all the sweet corn we could eat at the time but I sure could go for some now. :smilewink:
ya I think your going to have to pine away for a few more months, waiting for corn.
 
#11 ·
Hi lauber1, you have the planter zeroed in that's a good looking corn patch, now I recall someone posted that push type tends to do better also. While my corn spacing didn't look as good we did get about all the sweet corn we could eat at the time but I sure could go for some now. :smilewink:
I could see the push type having more down pressure applied to the drive wheel so there's less chance of slippage.
 
#12 ·
I could see the push type having more down pressure applied to the drive wheel so there's less chance of slippage.
I never even though about the wheel slipping , sure makes sense . Your have weight off of the wheel with the knife ( might be called something else ) opening the soil , then the little arms covering the seed , then your depending on a smooth wheel to drive the seed plate . I'm sure you could add some weight at least as much as the fertilizer attachment and a hopper full of fertilizer would be without fear of damaging it . A question for those in the know ,,, how do the better performing planters drive the seed plates ?
 
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#13 ·
Hi, all of the one of that era were wheel driven similar to that, interesting about adding wt and your right many of the tractor units had fert hoppers and many must have been used with fert. so adding some wt wouldn't hurt a thing in my thinking

This is an interesting thread I never thought about the shoe taking wt off the drive wheel but it sure would.
 
#15 ·
there are several different types of wheels used in seeding. Its a lot about the ground pressure over the seed row and how the different seed emerge. Some old school planter used an open faced steel wheel, where only the dirt at the sides get pressed, other had a split wheel so a crack would develop over the seed, still others used a rubber faced wheel with and without some tiny treads on the face. Some veggie seedier use a cage press wheel, still others used a pair of wheels at an angle. Nothing really wrong with any of the systems, its just the research of the time said they should go this way. Seeding perfectly gets you only one shot. If you have gaps or overseed it hurts your yield. Now this really isn't a huge deal most times in gardens, but out in the commercial field its the end of the world to miss the target, since you cant really go back and correct it.

I have dozens of differnat kinds of seeders here, most work well with just certain things, other plant most things well, none of them plant everything good.

Also the fert attachment on the Danville will keep the wheel off the ground about half the time, because of the poor way it was built, being a drag more than an opener. You don't have to put the fert into the ground, you can just top dress it and let the rain take it on down. Most times I will use one of mine with just the fert attachment, do this job, then use another one with just the seed box on. The best systems always use rolling openers, like small disc blades to slice it in, instead of the blunt force of a cast shoe.
 
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