old drill for no-till

I must be the exception because I have used my old John Deere/Van Brunt conventional drill all the time in no-till applications and have had excellent results.

First off, Cover crops like oats, buckwheat, cereal rye, winter wheat and hairy vetch are extremely competitive crops. Most need little more than just some contact with the soil and they will usually out compete weeds. Alfalfa is takes a little more time to establish but is usually only planted a 1/4" deep and one of the biggest causes of crop failure is from planting too deep.

Second, Soil type plays a huge part. Most typical no till drills are made for either going through sod or crust busting a previous corn crop. They are heavy and have tons of down pressure but if your stand is thin, been tilled within the last year or crust forming from clay content than it shouldn't be too much of an issue. My soil is fairly sandy so my drill can cut a slit in it as long as it is not a heavy sod of orchard grass or something.

third, a double disc opener will be much better than a single disc. Most older drills are single disc and throw dirt to one side and than to be covered by drag chains. Drag chains don't work all that great even with a finely tilled plot. Double disc will cut a nice slit and drop the seed directly in the trench. Press wheels are nice but probably lack the down pressure to close the slit anyways unless it's a true no till drill so you get mother nature to help you out. Planting before a good heavy soaking rain will usually be adequate.

My grain drill was one of the cheapest implements I bought at 250 dollars. It's a single disc opener but I use it in no till all the time for my food plots for deer. I usually put my seed setting at 50% more than what it typically recommended to compensate for my reduced germination ratio.

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll have to try something and see if it will work.

On the two drills I own the openers have little to do with the grass seed. The tubes for the seed run out the back to just in front of the drag chains and are not in line with the openers at all.
I have run drills without the grass seed tubes and just had the stuff fall out in front of the openers as well.
I'd just run over the land with a springtooth set shallow, broadcast the seed and run a packer over it to promote seed contact with the soil.

Or rent a proper drill.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.