BEDNAR can advise you if you are unsure which seed drill to choose for your farm.

As a good farmer, you definitely know that in order to achieve a high yield of good quality, several positive parameters need to come together. The quality of the seed, type of soil, climatic area, weather during the vegetation, treatment of crops and chosen agricultural technology are the decisive factors. However, do you know that the way of plant establishment and the right choice of seed drill are also decisive to achieve a yield?

WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING A NEW SEED DRILL?

A seed drill is not one of the machines in your fleet that you would buy, for example, every 3 years. Many farms with 1,500 hectares use their seed drill for 10 years. If you are considering buying a seed drill now or in the future, you should also consider some questions for choosing the right machine.

There are currently many manufactures of seed drills on the market. BEDNAR brand's portfolio offers four various categories of seed drills with work range from 3 to 12 metres. Todays reportage will briefly help you with the questions you should answer in the selection, and we will also briefly describe the differences among individual seed drills from the company BEDNAR FMT.

In which soil tillage system do I work mostly?

This question is important regarding the selection of the seed drill concept. If you use ploughing and prepare the land precisely before sowing on your farm, a type of a seed drill or seed bar without soil preparation may be of interest to you. On the contrary, if you plough and perform a light soil preparation or using a tillage without ploughing, you should look for a seed drill with a disc or coulter work section, which additionally processes the soil seeding.

Recommendation: The seed bar CORSA CN is offered in working ranges from 6 to 9 metres and fits for a seed drill to establish plants in well prepared soil, combined with a hopper FERTI-BOX FB_F or the storage tank COMBO SYSTEM CS. Thanks to its low weight and lack of soil treatment section it can establish plants even in heavy and wet conditions.

We recommend using a large-range seed drill the EFECTA CE in conditions with well-made seeding preparation of soil. The seed front part drill can be equipped with three options of front work equipment for additional soil treatment (combined with strip leveller or PROFI coulter for seeding after tillage, or combined with TURBO coulter in minimization technology).

Universal OMEGA OO_L and OO_FL seed drills are equipped with disk work sections when connected to PROFIT or TURBO coulter work sections offers an excellent additional soil treatment during seeding; these seed drills can establish plants well within a minimization technology. They are useful also in direct seeding after tillage, when the front seed drill part can be equipped with the front Crush bar and pneumatic tyre packer to level and flatten the soil surface.

How large is the annual planting surface?

Simply said, each metre of work range means more money. Therefore, it is important to consider how many hectares you sow each year and what your climatic conditions are and the time needed to establish plants. If you are a farm with large flat land, then you should definately choose a wide-range seed drill with which you can get a large area output. On the contrary, if you have mixed land, then you need to find machines with a smaller work range, such as semi-mounted seed drills or a universal seed bar. Recommendation: For large farms and agricultural holdings farming on large surface lands we recommend to choose the EFECTA CE large-range seed drill which offers a high output.  If you need a universal seeding machine with disc treatment it would fit to choose the OMEGA OO_L seed drill with work range of 8 meters.

Being a private farmer or a standard farm, or a farm with mixed land, you will surely appreciate the option of a CORSA CN seed bar with its work range of 6 - 9 metres, which is mounted, short and very skilful on headlands.  OMEGA OO_L or OO_FL seed drills with work range 3 to 6 metres are the proven choice.  

How powerful is my towing vehicle?

This issue is important for the choice of work range. The bigger the seed drill or the hopper is, the more powerful engine output is necessary. In general, it is better to choose an adequate or smaller work range than to exploit 100% of the engine power. If you have a smaller range, the ensemble will drive faster and the quality of work will be better, you will also achieve a lower fuel consumption. Recommendation: For all seed drills and seed bars by BEDNAR we give their recommended output of towing vehicle, when choosing it you should consider the oil pump and hydraulic system output or the landscape shape (hills, planes etc.).  

How should the seed drill establish plants?

The answer to this question is very important and it should not only relate to what I am planning for this year or next one, but what is my forecast for the future. We mean the issue of the establishment of plants itself. Do I wish to plant only one crop, two or three crops in one run? Do I wish to apply fertilizers or microgranulates? Do I wish to mix seeds with fertilizer?

Recommendation: Answers to these questions have the main role in choosing the seed drill, namely due to sowing options, various sowing depths, simultaneous fertilization and use of the hopper. The seed drill OMEGA OO_FL offers an option to sow up to three types of plants in one run, or an option to apply fertilizers, microgranulate and seeds. Sowing of main and secondary crops is no problem as it is possible to sow two types of plants thanks to the two-chamber hopper.

Those who wish to establish only one plant can choose OMEGA OO_L seed drill, CORSA CN seed bar or EFECTA CE large-range seed drill which provides a great daily output thanks to its large hopper volume. The independent setting of FERTI coulters work depth and seeding coulters enables putting fertilizer deeper and seeds shallow. Similarly two kinds of seeds can be simply established through a simple depth setting of even and odd seeding coulters.

What functions shall the seed drill support?

The days when large sowings were made are gone. Sowings are small but shall be put in precise and quality way in seedbed. It is important that the seed drill saves costs.

Recommendation: Costs savings of seeds can be made easily with BEDNAR sowing machinery as it can be equipped with switching off of a work range half or with the section control which evaluates the machine position based on GPS data and switches on or off seeds dosage in seeding coulters. Thus parts of land are not overlapped with seeding and no development of fungal diseases or pest reproduction occur in such sites.

How precise is the seed drill?

The precision in this regard can be seen as the precision in dosage of chosen sowing rate or in the quality of equal seeds sown in the soil. Every producer uses its different version of hopper or fixation of individual seeding coulters, if you wish to have a quality vegetation establishment, which is a prerequisite for its balance, you need to make some comparisons in this domain. Recommendation: All BEDNAR seed drills use their proven mounting of seeding coulters on a parallelogram. Thanks to its sowing depths is kept in the whole range and the plants grow uniformly.

In addition, we use the so-called double parallelogram in the EFECTA CE seed drill. Besides individual seeding coulters also the individual seed bar sections are fixed to the side frame with the parallelogram. The design of double edge seeding coulters is interesting, they help to precisely establish the vegetation in terms of avoidance of loops and ideal line deviations as the seed flow in edge coulters divides in two parts.

Who will work with the seed drill?

Last but not least, it is necessary to consider who will work with the seed drill. This question can be answered from the point of view of complexity of seed drill setting, command of individual sections or hopper calibration or emptying method. Recommendation: The seeding technology by the BEDNAR brand features a high level of user-friendly and easy settings. Seed drills can be controlled with the ISOBUS systems through a tractor monitor or through BEDNARs’ own monitors.

The calibration of BEDNAR OMEGA OO_L and OO_FL seed drills is made in the rear part, behind the seeding coulters through a tube that serves for total machine emptying. This option will surely be appreciated namely by older operators. Seed drills of the EFECTA CE series have the access to the hopper and calibration on the hopper side.

Test on your farm in 2021

Do not hesitate to contact us to test a machine from the BEDNAR brand portfolio just in spring vegetation establishment. Our sales representatives are ready to assist you in your choice of the right BEDNAR brand seed drill and to offer you the most suitable solution.

Farming with us is a joy [email protected] BEDNAR FMT s.r.o.

GALLERY / MEDIA