Your likes and dislikes of your existing seed drill, would you like a change?

[seldomseen]

I just use a 5710 series 2 with MRB.
The MRB’s only get used when we can’t get our fertilizer on in the fall. They are a pain but save an extra pass in the spring.
The 5710 is very durable and doesn’t require much maintenance over the years.
I pull a Morris cart behind the drill that I find very accurate and with a little maintenance seeds away year after year.
Most people around here use independent drills
Seed Masters or Seed Hawk or Bourgault 3320.
The independents do a nice job no doubt but a 5710 with steel packers isn’t much different in my opinion except huge difference in price.
Last spring when soil conditions were kind of lumpy and dry with crazy hot winds packing pressure meant everything you could not tell the difference between a $25,000 5710 and a million dollar Bourgault!

[biglentil]

80ft Vaderstaad Icon on 10", trash clearance can be an issue but being able to lift individual 10ft sections is nice, dump the odd lump and carry on. On sharp corners I pick up the inside 1st or 2nd gang to keep em from going backwards. Love this sliding funnel for filling by Screedhawk, can see when full from the ground, just fill to the top of the window then level off the excess with a push of the foot.

[rodd]

Just finished 5th year with Vaderstaad 80', 980 tank. Inline shank setup, which means shanks aren't offset, they are in line with a wing on the seed boot. Amazing trash clearance, 8100 acres, never had to pull out once to dump straw pile. We are seeding at 2 degree offset from previous year. ie: 2025 was 91 degrees, 2026 was 89 degrees. Maintenance isn't too bad, changed fert boots after 2 years, both boots need changing now. Have never broke a seed or fert opener. We have quite a few stones on our acres. We check bolts where shank connects to frame, torque them twice a season. Depth control perfect, sectional control has some issues when hitting a small triangle, we just do it manually. Turn compensation on new units has fixed this, they say. We had to buy new ipad this year ($560 at Costco) as the original just seemed to be unable to process.
Tank is great, scales on tank make metering extremely accurate and easy to check. Conveyor is good, fast, Calibration easy. Blockage monitor has worked perfect.
Overall has been best seeder we ever had. Flexicoil, JD, Bougault before this one. We have traded on new one, same machine, just 4' bigger and 1000 bu tank.

[biglentil]

Tried the inline shanks better trash clearance forsure, but I didnt like the job they did on heavy gumbo. Can't expect the sectional control to mind read, yes occasionally it will miss slightly if have to turn out hard and come back in for say a powerpole, in those situations I go to manual. Got 30k acres on mine and cant say ive had much for issues at all, rebuilt a handful of electric meter motors with Amazon bearings and seals. Put new bushings and grease nipples in at the kingpins at the front of the cart. I wouldnt want to go back to not having scales on each bin.

[fjlip]

"Alot of the bourgaults have the XTC opener now to get a more even job on canola."

Agree, very accurate over uneven and ditches, seeds to bottom, QDA does not. 3330 3 years, no MRB's, simple, cheaper, dislike banders since day one. Always do a fall fertilizer pass, same with all neighbors even IF they haul banders all spring in the air. Added 8550 cart, X40, satisfied, but a learning curve from 591 monitor. PDM augers accurate. Calibration easy accurate on iPad. Sectional certainly saves 3-5%, more on wet crap year around wet. All big $$$, all depreciate quickly! We all have cost/acre.

[rodd]

Big lentil. I agree with and we do everything you do also. We will be buying the fill hopper. Looks handy

[Sodbuster]

We’re on our 5th year with our Vaderstad, running inline shanks with a paired row for cereals and a single point for canola. Takes about 90 minutes to change points with a few Milwaukee’s. We have one of them fill hoppers on order too, nice to see a picture of what it looks like. Wish we were done seeding but still need 4 more days and the fields just don’t want to dry up.

[FarmJunkie]

We are using a Bourgault 3335 QDA, 10 inch spacing, Agtron blockage and no mid rows. 9950 tank with scales and conveyor. So far love the scales on the tank. Conveyor runs quiet and great for pulses and fertilizer. Scales are awesome game changer. Never any guessing after calibration if you will have the right amount of seed and fert. Sectional control also a game changer. Pays for itself quickly. All this being said these options are great as long as they work.
Have finished seeding and so far the crops look good coming up. Canola coming up real good. Could have seeded less pounds than we went with. Well built machine. Some of the start up issues we have had include; one sectional control cylinder had a scored shaft, leaking Oring on one of the fans, bad sensor on one of the meter shafts and just simple things like hose routing and length. Oh ya and the blockage monitors have been a bit of a pain with false plug readings. They say a new software update should fix that. Overall happy with the performance. Salesman and service have been great

[LEP]

Anyone use seed brakes? I wonder if they are worth the cost?

[Hamloc]

Some questions. On Vaderstad drill openers are lifted up with sectional control. Does this strain the frame or skew the drill due to it seeding only on one side on occasion? With precision drills obviously many more hydraulic hoses and cylinders, are the drills store inside or out? I have room to store my cart inside but not my seeding tool.