Originally Posted by
David Weaver
The precision of fertilizer (I am no expert on it) reminds me of a discussion going on with a forum I was on one time. Someone had bought a new deere 1790 planter, and other guys with kinze planters or older white planters were making fun of the seed spacing and how bad it was on a very expensive new john deere planter. Stories of guys down the road who had the same and had stands that were much uglier than theirs (with old planters), etc, and ridiculing (people in ag tend to be, or at least used to tend to be very brand loyal - think apple vs. pc). I asked if the population (number of seeds per acre) was OK and how the crops yielded and all I heard were crickets. If the accuracy really affects the results, then I guess it's important (with spreaders), if it doesn't, I guess it's not.
I can't stand my cheap scotts spreader because the back end of my yard is shaded and wet. Every winter as it freezes and thaws, it gets less and less smooth, but not so much that a pneumatic wheel spreader would have an issue, and not even a broadcast spreader, but my lightweight spread with tiny plastic wheels has all kinds of trouble going through there. I doubt it makes any difference in the results, but it annoys me a lot when it bounces around and the paddle stops!!
(steve has a lot of green stuff...I wouldn't be surprised if he's gone through a green planter - he could probably tell us the answer to the question nobody ever answered to me!! I remember a research paper stating that population was more important than spacing, and that spacing in the test cases they tried had no material effect on yield).