poor packing with drill

[rook]

We seed with a Bourgault 5710 with 10" spacing. It has 4" sweeps, which are good around here because they blacken it up a bit. However, the last row of shanks does not get good coverage of packing. Not enough dirt falls in, and to make matters worse the rows beside the last shank rows are further up the cultivator and they get filled to high with dirt thrown in them from the other shanks. So for the last row of shanks, not enough dirt on top, and the neighbouring rows have too much dirt, so depth control becomes an issue. It is less of a problem at 4.5 mph, but still somewhat noticeable and I won't go slower than that.

The way I see it we have 2 options: shank mounted tines to help close the furrow or use narrower openers. The tines have the advantage of letting you seed faster (I think). Please let me know which you think is the better option or your experience. Thanks in advance.

[NDHAWK]

I would look at going to narrow openers if you don't want to slow down.
We use 4" atom jet openerson our JD2210 airseeder,gives excellent depth controleven at 6 mph.

[lakenheath]

That is nature of a sweep or spoon. We ran 3" spoons last year (3 years prior we ran the narrow side band atom jets) and I couldn't believe the amount of dirt that the 3" spoon threw. Last row was naked for the birds to eat if you go over 4.5 mph. Even the narrowest spoon with throw dirt. The only thing I liked about the spoon or sweeps was that they pull very easy and have great seed placement if you stay below 4.5 mph. One our farm this year I can't travel that slow so we are going back to the atom jets.

[nw9flynn]

could you not buy furrow closers. I beleive that K-Hart makes them. This would force soil over the back shanks allowing you to keep your seeding speed high.