Adding a Liquid System to a New Planter

Jon Peters | a corn farmer in Illinois

"So, on our planter, we've got a twenty-four row John Deere, high-speed, exact emerge.

And so, speed was definitely considered for us and we needed a nitrogen system that would keep up with that, would keep up with the high speed that could be put on twenty-four rows, and it would able to give us the gallons that that we were looking for. So, we had an old planter before that we had put our nitrogen on. And we debated, you know, do we take this old planner and strip it down and put all Precision Planting products on it? At the end of the day, we still would have a twenty-year-old planter.

So, knowing that we keep something like that for a long time, we opted to buy a new machine that had the high-speed piece of it already. We knew what it was that we wanted to do and Precision Planting was a natural fit and gives us plenty of expandability if we decide we want to put additional products on. Again, it's bolt them on, plug in a wire harness, and tell the 20|20 monitor that you've got something new back there and away you go.

We ended up going with two vApply modules on our planter. We've got three tanks - a tank for nitrogen for doing our end rows and two tanks for starter fertilizer. So, we're using putting the starter in-furrow with FurrowJet. And we're putting our nitrogen on with a pretty new product called conceal.

We've got nitrogen on each side of the row. So, it's basically a two-by-two pattern and we're putting on a full rate of nitrogen and, roughly five, five gallons of per acre. Our first experience this spring, the first time that we loaded our tanks up with fertilizer and backed into the corner of our cornfield. And we turned everything on and set the planner down and took off and everything worked.

The monitor showed that all the rows were putting on fertilizer and we're super happy with how it came out right out of the gate. We knew exactly what we were putting on. There was no overlap

So it was more about precision and feed, is ultimately what we're looking for and we feel like we've achieved that. So, with the Precision Planting system, one of the the neat parts about it is the 20|20 monitor. I mean, I'm a color-visual person and to be able to see red, yellow, green is a big thing. I mean, I think that a lot of the industry is that way.

If it's green, it's good. If it's yellow, it's marginal. The nice thing about Precision Planting is, as you know, If one row is not hitting its target, you know way out of the way which row it is. Just being able to know exactly what you're putting on that it's getting put on where it's supposed to be and that you're hitting the rate, is a rewarding thing in and of itself.

Our challenge is time, is a time factor My brother and I both have full-time jobs away from the farm. And for us, it's how can we do this in less passes, how can it be better for the environment?

We're not losing nitrogen by putting it on in the fall. It's there when the plant needs it, and we feel like, we're getting the results. I would recommend Precision Planting, to anyone. I've heard about it for a long time. Some local farmers have used different pieces of Precision Planting.

We knew that when we bought our planter, it was something that we were gonna keep for a long time. And, we wanted a product that we knew we could rely on that had a good reputation, that had local support based on our program, and putting a hundred percent of the nitrogen on with the planter, you know, obviously, it's a time-saving thing for us. Yield is obviously important.

But even if we didn't get an increase in yield by putting Precision Planting on versus the system that we had on before. The savings in materials, the precision, the mapping piece of it. Being able to see exactly what you put on, where you put on, that part alone in my mind was worth the investment. I'm probably more excited about next season. This season was a first in a lot of ways. It was very nerve-wracking to learn a new planner, learn a whole new fertilizer system. So having a season under my belt, under our belt with this current product is, really looking forward to next season and maybe not so much expanding the products that we're doing, but being able to take more advantage of the speed specifically, and the precision which we're putting on our fertilizer.

Excited to maybe put the foot on the gas a little bit harder next year."