Periodically I get phone calls from No-Till Farmer readers asking for advice on how to adjust or equip their planters to improve their no-till performance.

Recently I received this question: “Can I add row cleaners to my soybean units in a planter that has a 30-inch corn configuration with 15-inch interplant units?”

The answer to this question is ‘yes,’ but it brings up several management issues. Here are three management problems that come up when planting on 15-inch rows:

Cleaning the trash can be a challenge.

The planter’s gauge wheels usually can’t fit between the old 15-inch crowns, which means they don’t work very well at maintaining proper seeding depth.

Planting into the old row doesn’t work well because residue cleaners and coulters weren’t designed to remove root balls. And even if they did, they’d be moving soil and producing a very uneven planting zone.

Trio Of Options. There are basically three configurations of planters that can be used for 15-inch rows. Either row parallel arms are lengthened on every other parallel arm; or planter units are mounted on two different bars, or pusher units are used.

In each case, the row cleaner will generally fit on the row unit and can effectively clean the trash in front of the row unit it’s on, which help the gauge wheels work more effectively to maintain the proper seeding depth.

That way, we can get the seed planted more uniformly in each row.

But sometimes row cleaners move residue out of the…