I am looking to purchase a walk behind seeder. We are trying to do more no till in our vegetable operation.
Does anyone else have experience with no till and direct seeding?
Any model/brands of seeders work better then others?
Thank you for your help
Heather
Hi Heather. We started direct seeding into no-till ground last year. We use a six row Jang push seeder and it works well. The ground is usually too hard for direct seeding without tilling, so we prepare the bed with a tractor-mounted tine weeder set to scuffle the surface as shallow as possible. That creates just enough loose dirt on the surface to cover the seed without stirring up weed seeds. We get excellent germination and growth - much better than direct seeding into tilled ground.
I don’t think Ken Laing is on this forum, but I know he does no-till seeding so you might want to look him up at Orchard Hill Farm.
Hi Heather, I build machines, and I also grow veggies.
If you visit my link for equipment I have built, you’ll see my methods of cover cropping up till now.
Equipment built by Eric
I realize what you are aiming for, and I have not seen anything on the market that would do what you want. I am aiming to build that this winter.
I use the Yang seeders on a drawbar pulled by a tractor, but the ground has been previously loosened by at least strip tilling with a 10 inch wide roto tiller. What I have in mind is to build a three row pto roto-tiller, where the tiller is an inch or two wide to chew up the ground just ahead of the Yang seeder. And that should work. Stay tuned, I’ll be posting pics as I get along, or let me know any ideas you might have.
Thank you Brent. That is helpful. I was wondering how/if you would be adjusting your planting after last years trial. Glad to hear you are seeing an improvement in germination as well as growth.
I’d like to see that! However, aren’t you concerned that the seeders would hit a lot of leftover vegetative matter?
I intend to combine rototiller, including parting disks, seeder wheel, closing wings, and press wheel into one modular unit, add a tank, pump, tubing for liquid in row fertilizers. Everything is physically tied to a frame so no missalignment will occur. Build a 3ph tool bar to accommodate any number of units. A machine that does everything in one pass to minimize wasted time, wasted fuel, and compaction
As a former intern at Orchard Hill, I know Ken uses a homemade no-till drill that is horse driven. This is for large field crops or cover crops.