Penetration no problem

Press, 15 May 1981, Page 14

Penetration no problem

By 1

FRANK VEALE

Penetration is proving no problem for a direct drill that has been built at Ruapuna in Mid-Canterbury. Born from a need to beat the stoney ground in the district, its inventor, Mr Edgar Taege, now thinks the drill could have a wider application than just among farmers afflicted with the rocky Ruapuna-type soil conditions. He calls it an air-seeder direct-drill, and his air system of delivering the seed to the ground is the first of its type in New Zealand, he savs.

The drill has been a fol-low-on from the Vontaar heavy-duty cultivator he built some years ago.

With the cultivator he aimed for simplicity but ruggedness, and he has carried that over into the drill. The towers above the tines, for example, are simply cast in steel, with an extension spring to the tine rather than a compression spring, which has more moving parts and points of wear. After 10 years at Ruapuna repairing machines, he feels he is well qualified to comment on the damage that stoney country can do to manufactured machinery, which he says has become lighter and which leads to penetration and traction problems on hard ground. He was prompted to build the drill by a local farmer, Mr Morris King, who had one of Mr Taege’s cultivators and so knew of its ability and also wanted to go direct drilling. But the machinery he had, and what was available on contract, just did not match

up to the soil conditions. The two men began experimenting and after much trial came up with the new drill. The initial trials concentrated on finding the right type of tine, and then the rest of the machine to match it.

A 1200 kg fertiliser and a 950 kg grain hopper were sited between the tractor and the business end of the drill, adding to the drill’s ability to penetrate. In spite of the drill’s weight, as with the cultivator, a mechanism is included to shift the weight over the wheels to ease the coupling of the drill to the tractor.

The fertiliser and seed are mixed, delivered to a ribbed continuous nylon belt, divided into 20 for each tine and delivered to the ground by blower.

While the delivery system

is unique, both Mr Taege and Mr King feel they have hit on a good innovation with their type of tine. Mr Taege describes it in this way: “It bursts the ground open to make a suitable environment for the •seed’’ rather thap cutting down like a disc drill. The disc system simply made a slot for the seed, while the air-seeder direct drill’s tines made a furrow that would ensure good root formation, said Mr Taege. The heavy duty drill might not leave a paddock looking the same as one treated with a direct drill, but Mr King and Mr Taege have tested the drill out and say it surpasses conventional drills' in the strike achieved and root formation is excellent. There are no trash clearance problems and the drill has been tried out on

higher country soil and no problems were encountered. Mr King now owns the first such drill. It has sown

turnips and barley and he? says it would be suitable fori anything from brassicas toi peas. 1 ’<