Grain drill for food plots.

[Mike4282]

looking for some advice on grain drills? How is fertilizer used with grain drills? What is the difference between a $500.00 used grain drill like a john deere Van Brunt Model Fb "A" 13 hole grain drill (this is the one im looking at buying) and a no till planter. Is there a major difference in soil preparation? Thanks guys for any help, I know very little on this subject..

 

[Briar Hill Brittanys]

On the FB drill, fertilizer is loaded in the back box. Desired rate is applied by opening the gates. The fertilizer will feed when the seeds are drilled. The drill will need a prepared seed bed to plant into, the no-till planter will plant with minimal or "no tillage" required. The drill you're looking at will plant small seeds in 13 rows at 7" spacing. The no till planter may be adjustable for row spacing, can plant larger seeds, and will plant as many rows as there are units. Some things to look for on the drill, is the drive gears on both wheels, the fertilizer drive could be rusted up, holes in the seed and fertilizer boxes. The pictures show a JD 2 row 70 Flexi planter. It's not no till, but maybe you can see the difference of a drill and planter. The other picture is my food plot drill, a 7 X 7 JD/VB drill. It was a 15, cut down to 7. HTH Mark

 

[flusher]

looking for some advice on grain drills? How is fertilizer used with grain drills? What is the difference between a $500.00 used grain drill like a john deere Van Brunt Model Fb "A" 13 hole grain drill (this is the one im looking at buying) and a no till planter. Is there a major difference in soil preparation? Thanks guys for any help, I know very little on this subject..

For grain drill planting, you generally prepare the soil by tilling--usually with a disc (offset disc for deep tilling- 4-6", tandem disc for shallower tilling 2-4").
No-till, as the name suggests, eliminates the need for tilling and plants the seed into a groove cut by discs attached to the drill frame. Very heavy springs or hydraulics are used to get the discs to cut the grooves to the desired depth. Generally, fully spectrum herbicides like Roundup are used before drilling to kill everything on the field. No-till drills are very expensive pieces of equipment--often they are available for rent to seed small areas like food plots.
Grain drills have a large box for fertilizer and/or large size seed like oats, wheat, etc. and a small size box (or boxes) for smaller seeds like grass seed, alfalfa, etc.

Here are a few photos of the Minneapolis Moline P3-6 grain drill that I restored and use to plant my 6-acre hayfield (Kanota oats). It's 10-ft wide, has 20 hoes/drop tubes (so the rows are spaced 6" apart). Cost me $275 for two of these. I used parts from both to make one good drill (the other unit is now lawn art). Spend about $200 in parts (fasteners, mostly and a hydraulic cylinder to raise and lower the hoes) and about 2 months of time to get the drill field-ready.



It does a good job planting oats.



Good luck.

 

[Mike4282]

Thanks guys that clears up a lot sounds like a no till would be nice but its not in the cards, I think I may purchase the grain drill for 500 bucks.

 

[Turbys_1700]

Those old Van Brunt's do a good job for what they are designed for. I over seeded my yard several years back with fescue and just drilled in the yard over the grass with no bed preparation. The results were excellent. That old drill slitted into the yard and really put the seed in the ground. Germination was outstanding.