Planter Maintenance Checklist: Are Your Disc Openers Junk?

Winter is coming, which means it’s time to make sure there aren’t any gremlins lurking in your equipment. Precision Planting’s Clay Scott checks in with one of the most important things that should be on your planter maintenance checklist.  

“You’ve heard this for the past many years. The first thing to check — are our opening discs big enough? This one is about 14 and 5/8. I’m going to tell you that this disc is junk. You’re going to say, ‘Clay, Precision Planting recommend that we change John Deere disc at 14.5. And you’d be right. However, is this going to get you through the season? If you only put 30 row acres on a year into some heavy conventionally tilled ground, this will probably get you by. But if you’re doing 100 row acres into some heavy no-till ground with no coulter, this is junk. This is not going to get you through a full year. These are management decisions that we have to make right now that are going to affect the crop for the following year. This is just as important as fertilizer choices and inputs. I know that’s been heavy on our minds as of late, and this is just as important.”   

Clay will share more insights during a planter classroom at the National No-Tillage Conference, Jan. 7-10 in Louisville, Ky. Head to NoTillConference.com for more information.

Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.