Planting soybeans with a John Deere 3020 and 8250 grain drill

[@DylanJoyceFarms]

I must have missed this video when it came out. I really enjoyed it. Nothing nicer than planting in a worked-up seed bed.

[@stinsonfarms6724]

The ground was in really good shape and I had trouble with the planting depth. Took some of the seed 3 weeks to come up. I was just about at the point of replanting. Glad I didn't now.

[@gregrhodes8451]

Man that seedbed is sweet! God bless

[@stinsonfarms6724]

Thank you Mr. Greg. Best shape I've had it in for a while!!

[@randywilson9611]

Man I really like the old school farming great video good to see you again

[@stinsonfarms6724]

Old school is all I know. Lol Thanks for watching!!

[@randywilson9611]

@@stinsonfarms6724 me to I watch all the big farmers I don't know how they can do all the Auto stearing and Electric stuff

[@stinsonfarms6724]

@@randywilson9611 I like to have my hands on the wheel driving!

[@randywilson9611]

@@stinsonfarms6724 lol

[@jankotze1959]

Well done, seems if the planter did a great job, well done so far

[@stinsonfarms6724]

Planter worked great. It's fun to plant with. Thanks for watching!!

[@carrollmccoun110]

I try to not comment on a lot of videos that I watch. But man, I love what your doing. Your equipment, the way your using it and the results you getting are my kind of farming. Great job and best of luck with the crops.

[@stinsonfarms6724]

I just do what I know and use the equipment I like. I really like the equipment I grew up with. Simple and easy to work on. Thank you for the comment!!

[@macbryant4880]

Looks good, thanks for sharing.

[@stinsonfarms6724]

Thanks and thanks for watching!!

[@jamesmorrison1884]

Hello looks good. Have have a great day

[@stinsonfarms6724]

Thank you Sir and thanks for watching!!

[@johngourley741]

I planted my soybeans with a grain drill also. Stuffed paper down in the holes I wanted to skip. Worked OK.

[@stinsonfarms6724]

This was my first time planting with a grain drill. It did great but I think I got the seed too deep. Not a good stand yet but they are still coming up. Thanks for watching!!

[@countrysidecowboy4464]

Man I really like those two paired up together even if I’m not a Deere guy. They look good together. I liked seeing the drill in the field, I’m glad it worked pretty well for ya. I’m sure the soybeans will do good! Thanks for the video

[@stinsonfarms6724]

They are a pretty good match. Drill worked like it should and the 3020 is fun to drive. Thanks for being here watching and commenting!!!

[@gleanerk]

I did enjoy watching the video! If you can find a toolbar with 2 shanks to run in tire track to fluff up soil would work. ( just a suggestion) . We usually plant around 2 bushels/ acre and I think cousin SBF did too ! Enjoyed cousin Bill ! Oh tell your video person they did a great job ( outstanding in there field)

[@stinsonfarms6724]

The toolbar would be a great idea. There is a big difference in the seed coming up in the rows behind the tires. Wish I had thought about that! She does a good job behind the camera but don't want to be in front of it. Lol

[@lukestrawwalker]

Yeah we've got an old three bottom cultivator that was meant to be on the 3 point hitch to take out the tire tracks behind a front-mount four row cultivator, something like that would work great, but it'd have to have a hitch made on it to pull the drill...

[@bigr6599]

Good video!! When we setup the drill I use a long floormat from the shop or a piece of carpet would do also. I drive over it with the drill down in the yard and count the seeds over a 4ft span. Sometimes the indicator on the drill can be way off like you found. The mat helps the seeds to show and counting them helps give a sanity check

[@stinsonfarms6724]

That sounds like a good idea. I was having a hard time finding the seed on the ground. Really hard to tell just how much it was putting out. Thanks for the input!!

[@lukestrawwalker]

Yeah I used to do a final check by dropping the planter on the hard driveway and pulling forward about ten feet, then going back and looking at the seed spacing-- the planter won't penetrate the hard driveway, leaving the seed laying on the surface easy to see the spacing and figure the population from that...

[@Pennies_on_the_dollar]

Man yeah Mr Bill!! Got those beans in the ground!! Boy the 3020 sure does look good with that drill behind it!! I can see what you are saying about the settings, but all in all it went pretty good!! Loved seeing you do this, one day I hope to as well! This video and others you have done will be such a huge help when that time comes!! Glad you didn't get rained out!! How are they looking yet? Still early I'm sure, but very interested to hear how they do!! Thank you sir for another great video!! Really enjky these alot!! Hope all is well, don't work to hard my friend!! 😁👍

[@stinsonfarms6724]

It sure felt good to get them done. But at this time I don't have a very good stand. May have to replant. Not sure if I got the seed too deep or the 4" of rain we got right after had something to do with it. Wait and see?? Old 3020 does good. Now on to hay!! Thanks for always being here watching and commenting!!

[@Pennies_on_the_dollar]

@@stinsonfarms6724 Oh man seems rain has needed a few of y'all up for sure!! Hopefully don't have to replant!! Man yeah off to hay 😁😁😁 Yes sir always!!

[@TAHDAHFarm]

I don't remember where I read it, but I'm sure it was in a manual someplace. It said when you're setting your drill to go open further than you need to, and then come back to where you wanted to be. My drill has 2 settings and they aren't the same. I'm on 11 on one sise and 14 on the other side. It was playing pretty close to the same there at the end.

[@stinsonfarms6724]

Thanks Tim. Yes I found out you have to play with it a little. At the end I was pretty much on my population target but I'm light in places and heavy in places. I'm not real happy with the stand. I think I put the seed too deep. They are still coming up but it's going on 2 weeks. Should all be up by now. I may have to go back over some areas. Thanks for watching!!

[@TAHDAHFarm]

With that drill, the depth is not very accurate so with the 8300 I had I shot for around an 1". I had an old farmer tell me "if you don't see any seeds on top you are planting them to deep". So from my experience it took up to 3 weeks for the stand to come up. That is one of the reasons why I got the 750 drill. It has gage wheels that help plant at a more regular depth. It still takes several weeks to get a good stand. I stopped worrying about it once I saw some beans pop up I would give it several weeks. Good luck y friend.

[@stinsonfarms6724]

@@TAHDAHFarm thanks. I'll give it a little time. Just pretty discouraging to see such a spotty stand. But beans were still popping through the ground yesterday.

[@TAHDAHFarm]

I was always disappointed with the stand but did pretty good in the end.

[@lukestrawwalker]

The chart in the lid is a good starting point, but to really KNOW what it's putting out, you have to calibrate your drill. It's not too hard to do, just takes some time. First you need to know how many revolutions the drive wheel makes per acre. To do that, either paint a stripe down the sidewall of the tire or a piece of tape, stick a flag in the ground when its pointing straight down, drive forward til it's pointing straight down again, and measure the distance between the two points... Or you can drive forward several revolutions just make sure you know exactly how many turns the tire makes, and then measure the distance and divide by the number of turns. This gives you the ROLLING circumference of the tire, which is slightly different than the overall circumference. Once you know this, you can divide the area of an acre (43,560 sq. feet) by the working width of the drill (end opener to opposite end opener) to find out how many feet the drill has to cover to make an acre. Then divide the feet traveled to make an acre by the wheel operating circumference to find out how many wheel revolutions per acre. Once you know this, put down a tarp, floor mats, or pans to catch the seed under the openers. Jack up one wheel of the drill (the drive wheel) so it turns freely, and fill the drill half full over a few openers-- you don't have to fill the entire drill, though you can, just half full over a few meters is enough. The reason you want it half full is, there's a slight difference between the drilling rate when full and when it's near empty, so halfway full is 'average' seeding rate-- the weight of the seed when it's full crams a FEW more seeds through the meters with every turn, versus when it's near empty, and this averages out about half full. Now turn the drive wheel a fraction, say 1/10th to 1/100th, of the number of turns per acre. Say it takes 630 turns to make an acre, well, that's a lot of turning, and turning it 63 times is 1/10th but that's still a lot of turns, 6.3 turns is 1/100 but that's hard to start and stop exactly, so any number that works out as an even percentage and a reasonable whole number of turns is desirable... 31.5 turns would be 1/20th of an acre, or 16.25 turns would be 1/40th acre... you don't want too many turns or too few, but more is more accurate than too few, and a whole number of turns is best if you can figure it. Once you decide on a number of turns that's a given fraction or percentage of an acre, you can turn the wheel that number of turns (make sure that seed is dropping before starting, so the meters don't have to make a full turn before dropping any seed, but then vacuum or sweep these seeds up and dump them back in the box before starting your wheel turn seed drop... collect the seeds from the given number of turns, then gather them up and weigh them, by either pulling the tarp or pans or just vacuuming them up into a clean shop vac, and then dumping them into a bucket that you've already weighed the tare weight of... weigh the bucket and seeds then deduct the tare weight of the bucket, and then multiply that by the percentage of an acre that the number of turns of the drive wheel would have covered, to give the total weight of seed dropped per acre. If needed, adjust the meters to drop more or less and repeat the test as necessary until you dial it in where you want it. Then you can write down the actual settings in your book. If the setting arm is sloppy and the numbers aren't lining up, it's best to fix it, but if it's worn or whatever or no time or parts to fix it, just measure the width of the exposed meter fluted roller sticking out into the meter housing, and the gate setting (the gates can be adjusted up or down depending on seed sizes, this is detailed how to do this in your manual). This will allow you to return to that setting by merely measuring the fluted roller width setting and gate settings between crops. Of course, soybean size (like most other seeds) can vary from year to year, even from one variety or even seed lot to another... Which will of course change the rate at which the drill is seeding, since larger seeds will be fewer in number than smaller seeds at the same weight or rate... SO for greatest accuracy, you need to calibrate the drill basically every time you change variety or seed size, and from year to year. the good news is, once you have the basic information written down (number of turns of the wheel for instance) it goes much faster.

[@SoybeanFarmer3300]

120000 seed to the acre is actually a good population. Overcrowding reduces the yield. learned it the hard way when I planted on seven and a half inch Rows.

[@stinsonfarms6724]

Right now I have about a 60% stand. I think I got them too deep. Seed is still coming up but it's going on 2 weeks. I'm going to give it a couple more days and if it doesn't get better I'm going back over the top with more seed. We also got 4 inches of rain right after planting. That may have had something to do with it.

[@lukestrawwalker]

@@stinsonfarms6724Yep good rule of thumb is only plant a seed a maximum of 10X it's diameter... so for a 1/4 inch soybean seed, that's about an inch and a half. Heavy rains right after planting isn't good in almost any soil, though on clay soils its the worst. Soybeans (and a lot of other crops, but particularly dicots like soybeans and cotton that pull the seed up out of the ground with the cotyledon (seed leaves). IN those situations it's best to run a rotary hoe over the ground to break up the crust, if you have one. main thing is not to break the tops off the bean sprouts as they're coming up... you'll ALWAYS do some damage but if it saves the stand it's worth it... soybeans aren't particularly sensitive to exact seeding rates; you can have a surprisingly thin stand and still make good yields if it's pretty even, the plants can make up for the missing plants, to an extent. It's always a hard decision on when to replant. Generally speaking if you have a 70-75% stand it's fine, and even a 60-65% stand that's "on time" versus a replant stand that will be a few weeks later in the season may well outproduce the replant stand even if it's "perfect" simply due to the weather and later planting date...

[@davidwhisnant3230]

I like seeing the old school i dont like New farm machemy and cab trartors

[@stinsonfarms6724]

I like farming old school. I have a cab tractor but it is 48 years old. Thanks for watching!!