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Planter ‘Firming Points’ vs Seed-Tube Guards

I’ve spent much of my adult life researching ways to make planters and drills function better in no-till, and it never ceases to amaze me how garbled up the thinking can get on some design issues. Take, for instance, firming points. Please, take them! Away, far away! 🙂

Seriously, some people (not just farmers, mind you, but engineers too) think that seed firming can be done by a device that runs thru the bottom of the furrow before the seed even arrives! Apparently, somehow, they equate firm soil with seed firming, which isn’t the same at all.

Acra-runner-lr
Avoid runners like these

For seed firming to occur, we need the seed to have good contact with the surrounding soil. In tilled seedbeds (including strip-till), this is often accomplished by pressing the soil from the sidewalls back over the seed. But where the sidewalls have structure, as all no-till soils do, this is a poor method–and we instead want to press the seed down into the bottom of the furrow to have consistent and adequate seed-to-soil contact.

But somehow this gets all woozy for some people (it’s really very straightforward). In soils with any moisture, the worst thing you can do is smear or compress the bottom of the furrow while forming it–the exact area where you’re going to drop the seed, and hope the roots grow thru this smearing! It’s also exactly where you want to be able to embed the seed into the surrounding soil with some device pressing down on the seed after it’s deposited, which is much more difficult if the soil there has already been smeared or compressed.

Chrome Valion Pre XP

Some people insist that the ‘firming point’ is to “clean out” the bottom of the furrow, or to wipe out any ‘w’ shape from the opener blades. Again, this is propaganda from some misguided marketing machines who have no idea what is going to happen agronomically. You don’t want anything sliding along the bottom of the furrow until after the seed is placed. We did away with hoe openers for a reason–so let the blades cut a clean furrow and be done with it. If the furrow is shaped incorrectly, it is likely due to the blades being worn down and much too small in diameter, or blades flexing inward far too much (which creates a pinched furrow that may be no thicker than a credit card), or too much soil disturbance ahead of the seed opener creating voids and fissures. But whatever you do, don’t let anything hang below the blades to smear the furrow bottom!

Valion Ultra for Deere XP.

In keeping the blades spaced the correct distance from each other (i.e., minimizing their flexing), what you need is a hardened seed-tube guard which doesn’t come anywhere close to touching the bottom of the furrow. Hardened guards include those from RK Products as well as our Valions. (Other companies with tubes welded to guards aren’t hardened.)

Valion seed tube guard chrome alloy for Kinze 3000.

Eliminate blade flex: Get furrows that are correctly shaped for the entire planting season–use our chrome Valions, which last 2X to 5X longer than OEM guards, depending on the brand and model of planter. For lifetime durability, you might be interested in our Valion Ultras with tungsten carbide inserts. Either way, your seed depth will be much more consistent. Your crops will notice, and you will reap the rewards.

Derek Tjaden

Derek is Kansas native who grew up in a 100% no-till farming operation. From an early age the benefits of no-till were made known to Derek by his father and by attending no-till conferences. From there he furthered his passion for soils while at Kansas State University getting his agronomy degree. He has had the experience of working in various roles and sectors of agriculture from sales and consulting, to management, which have all been within production agriculture. Derek has also worked in specialty ag markets such as turf and ornamentals.

Bob Pagel

Sales & Service Representative

Prior to joining Exapta, Bob Pagel was an Agricultural Territory Sales Manager for Ritchie Brothers, serving parts of MN, WI and IA. He continues to support his family farm in SE Minnesota.

Jon Zeller

Current Product Engineer

Jonathan Zeller joined Exapta excited to return to working with no-till planting equipment. He supported research of no-till planting and other ag related projects for 7 years with Kansas State University’s Agricultural Engineering Department after getting his engineering degree. He later worked 3 years for Landoll Company, LLC. where he gained experience in a design engineering role. Jonathan grew up on a small family farm in NE Kansas working with row crops, hay and cattle. Jonathan enjoys solving engineering problems and improving or creating products to be robust and easy to install and service.