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Retrofitting to plant 100 acres an hour

A Michigan farmer says this season he’s been able to seed about 100 acres an hour with a new custom-built high-speed planter.

Clint Hagen tells Brownfield the farm has a history of experimenting with equipment.

“We just don’t ever seem to hesitate to tear something apart and put it back together,” he shares.

“And, everybody knows what the cost of something brand new is these days. A few years back, we asked John Deere about building a planter like this, and they basically told us they couldn’t do it. So maybe that was a little bit of a challenge to just say, well, we know we can.”

Hagen says a 120-foot used planter frame was retrofitted over the winter to 20-inch rows.

He says as farmers look for efficiencies, others in the area have also made similar conversions now that the technology is available.

“These 120-foot frames, there are several sitting around the countryside now, used enough to where the price of them is actually quite cheap for the amount of iron you’re getting,” he says. “That made it more attractive.”

Hagen says a 30-foot planter is used for smaller fields or works within the same field with the same precision coverage maps.

Hagen farms with his brother and son in Michigan’s Thumb and says he expects to wrap up planting sugarbeets today.

Photo Courtesy of Atwater Farms.