Truax No-Till Drill

[Creekside Quarters]

Just wondering if anyone has used a Truax No-Till Drill. We are borrowing one from a acquaintance and it is a model FLXII816 with dual tail wheels and drills about 10.5' wide. Just trying to get it setup correctly to make sure our seed gets planted correctly. We are planting orchardgrass, redclover, and including some oats as a nurse crop through light residue conditions. Thanks.

 

[Foodplot]

I run an FLXII88 rear wheel, similar to yours. You can PM me if you have specific questions.

Just wondering if anyone has used a Truax No-Till Drill. We are borrowing one from a acquaintance and it is a model FLXII816 with dual tail wheels and drills about 10.5' wide. Just trying to get it setup correctly to make sure our seed gets planted correctly. We are planting orchardgrass, redclover, and including some oats as a nurse crop through light residue conditions. Thanks.

 

[jcaron2]

Just wondering if anyone has used a Truax No-Till Drill. We are borrowing one from a acquaintance and it is a model FLXII816 with dual tail wheels and drills about 10.5' wide. Just trying to get it setup correctly to make sure our seed gets planted correctly. We are planting orchardgrass, redclover, and including some oats as a nurse crop through light residue conditions. Thanks.

I've done all my planting with a Truax FLXII88, which is just a narrower version of the same drill. I've planted orchardgrass and oats with it simultaneously. If you're incredibly picky about the seed ratios, I think you're supposed to put the oats in the cool season/grain box, but I always just mix them together in the small seed box (at the rear). It's always worked just fine for me that way.

The manual will give you a rough idea of where to set the flutes to control the seeding rates for various grasses, but I find that's more of a starting point than a perfect value. Or if you're really, really picky about it you can go through the calibration procedure in the manual, but it looks like a major pain and major overkill if you ask me. I usually just start mine in the middle setting for establishing new pastures and estimate how much seed I've used after an acre or so. Then I adjust up or down accordingly to narrow in on whatever pounds/acre I'm trying to hit.

By the way, in case you don't have it already, you can download the manual here: http://www.truaxcomp.com/manuals/FLEXII March 2009.pdf

Josh

 

[Creekside Quarters]

Thanks for your help. Ended up going through the calibration setup in the manual. My biggest concern was that i didn't want the coulters to be plowing across the field, only wanted them to cut through the residue and leave a firm field. Planted our fields on Sept 3rd and the seedlings are popping through now. Need to get some rain to speed things up before it gets cold. It figures all summer long we were battling against pop up thunderstorms to get hay harvested and now that we need it, it's now where around. Ended up planting Potomac orchardgrass at 20lb per ac and red clover at about 6lb per acre. We would mix in a half a bag of oats per whole bag of orchardgrass. Thanks again.

 

[bjr]

Just curious, about what did you pay for the pasture/ochard seed? We pay $2.80-$3.00 a lbs. here at the feed store. I used a 3 pt cone spin spreader and mixed some floordry absonbent to help give some volume as I couldn't regulate the gate real well on the spin spreader. bjr