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Useful Planting-Related Websites
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
filed under: Planting Systems
There are a number of useful web sites with information and contacts relating to the planting of sunflower and other crops. Some are obvious; others less so. Here’s a partial list.
— Planter Manufacturers —
• Case IH: www.caseih.com — Go to “Products,” then “Planting & Seeding Equipment” for full descriptions of the Case product line, including the 1200 Series ASM planters.
• John Deere: www.johndeere.com and www.readytoplant.com — The Deere “Ready to Plant” site is an excellent educational resource, including details on planter maintenance, operation and troubleshooting tips.
• Kinze Manufacturing, Inc.: www.kinze.com — Go to “Planters,” then “Seed Metering,” then “Finger Pickup Seed Meter” for commentary on singulating seeds for sunflower.
• Monosem: www.monosemplt.com — Monosem manufactures the NG Plus line of precision vacuum planters.
• White: www.whiteplanter.agcocorp.com — Go to “Seeding & Tillage” for complete details on the White line of planters and air drills.
— Air Seeder / Drill Mfrs. —
• Bourgault Industries — www.bourgault.com
• Case IH — www.caseih.com
• Flexi-Coil — www.flexicoil.com
• Great Plains Mfg. — www.greatplainsmfg.com
• Horsch Anderson — www.horschanderson.com
• John Deere — www.johndeere.com
• Morris Industries — www.morris-industries.com
— Other —
• Precision Planting: www.precisionplanting.com — This Illinois-based company offers the MeterMax Plus calibration system, the eSet vacuum disks, Keeton seed firmers, Bullseye seed tubes and other products and educational services geared toward optimizing the precision placement of crop seeds.
• Pioneer Hi-Bred International: www.pioneer.com — The seed company’s “GrowingPoint” website contains a wealth on information on numerous aspects of crop production.
• Colorado State University: www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/crops/pubcrop.html — Site lists a “Planting Guide for Field Crops” that includes sunflower.
• Kansas State University: www.oznet.ksu.edu/library/crpsl2/MF2384.pdf — You can download a pdf of the High Plains Sunflower Production Handbook from this address.
• North Dakota State University: www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/machine.html — This site has a bulletin titled “Cali-brating Drill Seed Meters” (AE-1144). Though produced 10 years ago, it still contains useful recommendations for seeding a variety of crops.
• South Dakota State University: plantsci.sdstate.edu/precisionfarm/paper/papers/SSMG/SSMG-37.pdf — While not speaking to sunflower, the bulletin “Estimating Corn Yield Losses from Unevenly Spaced Planting” is a good introduction to the value of collecting and interpreting yield loss information.