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New Row Shut-Off For Air Planters
You can shut down any row on Deere air planters and other models with this new add-on kit that was developed by North Carolina farmers and built by Reddick Equipment Co., Williamston, N.C.
  "It eliminates overlapping on point rows or odd rows at the edge of a field, saving seed and preventing yield reductions," says Swanson Graves.
  The add-on unit, which attaches with 4 bolts, uses motorized ball valves in the air pressure or vacuum lines on the planter units to interrupt the airflow. A valve bolts onto each planter row unit and is plumbed into each air hose between the planter and the manifold. When the operator selects a row to shut down, the ball valve closes to restrict airflow so no seeds are picked up. Red indicator lights on a console in the cab come on whenever you shut off a row.
  "It allows you to plant the exact number of rows required to make full use of the field," says Graves. "Other row shut-off units use a butterfly valve in the air manifold so they can only be used to shut off whole sections of the manifold. It comes in handy where you have a wide planter and you need to plant only a few rows to finish the field. It also allows you to shut off units in sequence as you plant up against angled or slanting point rows.
  "You don't have to cut any hoses with this system. If anything goes wrong with it, you just unhook our hose and reattach the original hose to the air manifold and you're ready to plant again."
  Graves says the Row Control is designed for use with Deere MaxEmerge and MaxEmerge II and MaxEmerge Plus planters, as well as Deere's new 1720 model. However, he says it can also be modified for use on other air planters.
  It's available for 8-, 12- and 16-row planters. "If you wanted to set it up so one switch controls two rows, you could use the 8-row unit on a 16-row planter," says Graves.
  An 8-row model sells for $2,835; 12-row, $4,005; and 16-row, $5,065.
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Reddick Equipment Co., Inc., 1909 West Main St., Williamston, N.C. 27892 (ph 800 334-3388; fax 252 792-4913).


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2003 - Volume #27, Issue #1