Getting ready to plant corn

I'm working on the corn planter. We have a white 5100 six row with liquid. We have 40 acres to plant. You have to do as much work to the planter to plant 40 acres as 100 acres.

The problem is that it has never really worked right for us. We are strip-tilling first, then following with the White. Our old 5400 4-row I think did a better job.

The 5100 does a great job in straight no-till. It has the factory White no-till coulters, sometimes we use the disk type row cleaners that came with it, I added Yetter no-till coulters to a toolbar a year ago. We use those to place the liquid fertilizer.

When you get into loose cloddy soil, like striptilled compacted ground, the seed placement and spacing go all over the place. The two no-till coulters just move the clods around, rather than cutting though them. 

We also have problems with the John Blue squeeze pump. I'm never sure if it is fertilizing or not.

I should just go out  and buy the system. I think I would get the Martin row cleaners first, they would knock the big clods out of the way, without digging a trench. I'd mount them on the row unit I think. Then add the martin closing wheels.

We also need to add an extra spring to the down pressure. I thought we had the springs but now I can't find them. Might add schaffert seed firmers if it keeps raining. Not terribly expensive.

Now is not the time to be overhauling the corn planter. Need to be planting...