The work we love
Jeff Calder and Kerry Cadieux, 2 Manitoba farmers were frustrated with the escalating seed costs and poor placement of air drill seed delivery systems. This turned them to look at their corn planter which offers superior seed placement and depth control but metering was a major problem. Starting out with John Deere’s 45 cell sugar beet disk they got frustrated with seed being pulled through the larger holes in the disks along with the multiple seeds getting sucked to each cell which was designed for sugar beets which are much bigger than canola. Canola is also seeded at much higher rates so 45 cells just weren’t enough. They doubled the amount of holes to 90, designed a cell that would only pick up one canola seed instead of two or three and developed a knockout wheel to coincide with the 90 cell disk to keep the holes clean. This enabled the use of the corn planter for canola and opened the door to other small seeds such as sesame.
Because of this germination rates skyrocketed from 60% with their drills to 90% or better with their planters. Seeding rates were sliced in half and costs went down. Due to the increased number of holes planting speeds remained in the 5-6 mph range, saving valuable time.
