Field corns up and near due to be laid by

[FarmboyBill]

Was wondering how many of ya planted a sizeable acreage, say round 5 with OLD but machanically sound planters. Did u have skips this year? If so how do u account for them? Soil? Circumstances? or planter?
I think my planter is in sound machanical condition, however it is VERY old. Ive always had skips with it. I overhauled it , and as yet havnt used it since. Its a shallow planter with say 8in discs, where I was brought up people only used planters winthsay 12in discs. Up there, they were used to listing corn, and so went with the big disc planters. But, even so, I bought the planter up home when I was 18 thereabouts. So somebody planted shallow corn with it, Course, maybe they didnt like it and thats why it was in the AC lot where/when I bought it.

[oneokie]

Did you replace the cutoff and the knocker? Was your plate correct for the size/shape seed you used? Tractor speed can have a large influence on spacing.

[geo in mi]

FarmBoyBill,
You need to give it a test run on a solid surface to be able to see how it drops.

geo

[ronbre]

maybe the skips were birds going behind you and eating the seed? I hand planted my sweet corn and i had some blank areas that no corn came up ..and i'm fairly sure it was birds..

[DaleK]

There are dozens of things that could cause it, mechanical mostly, but sometimes it doesn't matter much. We have a few chunks out of our 445 acres of corn that look like that, seed went in the ground ok but we had no rain in April or May and some just didn't emerge.

[Stephen in SOKY]

I've cut my acreage back & am now below your threshold, but I still use my old 246/247 planter every year:

[FarmboyBill]

I love it when there comes a time when I can learn something new, and realize it and not let the moment pass by unnoticed. 1ok What is a cuttoff and a knocker that they need replaced, and where would I get one for a machine made in the 20s 30s? Yes I know the plates were right, as I have 6 sets of plates and always make note to find out what plate size to use when buying the seed corn.
Geo. Ive done that on plywood. Seed bounces and dont tell you much. Bout the best I accomplished was to make the run 6 times across 3 sheets of plywood laid longways. They had a lap of a foot each over each other. I gathered all the seed from each side, best I could, cause the bounces caused somma them to be where I wouldnt know where they started out from, what box that is. Then after gathering the seed and counting it 6 times, Id have a central amount of seed I could figure came out of each box.( I counted each side seperatly). Then, by figuring the length the planter ran and devideing that by the number of seed, id get a rough estimate of how far the seed was spaced.
Ron. Ive thought of birds, especially due to this being a shallow planter

Ive also thought of the fertilizer touching the seed as it used to free fall from the rubber flutes onto the top of the ground. Im going to make a 4in bracket to seperate the fert from the seed corn and bury it 4in.

[FarmboyBill]

Steve, if its 3 pt, it aint old lol, course I imagine Dale could say the same thing bout pull type planters lol

[oneokie]

What brand planter are you using? Knowing this and the model number would help diagnose a cure.

A "cutoff" is usually a finger type thingy that pushes excess seed from the holes in the plates before they reach the drop tube. Can be either a piece of stamped sheet metal or a cast iron finger, depending on make of planter and age.

A "knocker" is a small wheel, round or with small knobs, that is spring loaded to force the seed from the cell in the plate as it comes over the drop tube. It has a spring on it to force it down into the plate cell.

The cutoff and knocker are usually retained under a cover.

You mention that your planter/s are really old, and imply that they are drawn type. Are they horse drawn or tractor drawn? If horse drawn, the cutoff and knocker may not have been part of the design.

[geo in mi]

I had a planter once that was misaligned and vibrated up out of the ground on one side, then the other. I'm guessing your planter tongue is too short and it raises out of the ground when the tractor moves upwards at the drawbar. Try it with a clevis to see what happens---might be just enough flexibility to keep it in the ground. (Skips with a short tongue will be equal on both rows) Just a guess.

geo