Rice Planter Opinions

[IsaanAussie]

Looking for opinions on this simple form of planter. Are they any good? Options? Things to look for? Any comments welcomed. 

[farmerjo]

Hi IA,

Unless your doing some direct drilling in some sandy loam soils you would be better off with a tyne seeder.

Less moving parts.

[IsaanAussie]

Just now, farmerjo said:

Hi IA,

Unless your doing some direct drilling in some sandy loam soils you would be better off with a tyne seeder.

Less moving parts.

Complete novice on these things, please tell me more. Primary objective, get the rice planted properly and avoid these damn queues. Would like to use it for some other "off season crops", therefore some level of flexibility for fertiliser or compost application. The unit pictured is priced at 40K. 

[kickstart]

My opinion, I would use a disc planter, if they are any old residue from the last crop or a lot of weeds the discs will cut through the rubbish, with a tine drill any rubish could collect on the tines, making more of a furrow than a drill row and the seed might not be covered properly .

But, FJ has a point, less moving parts, but you will only be planting a few rie? so it should last a good few years before any real maintenance.

I like the one with the bar at the back, would act as a press, press the land, on sand land could help keep moisture in,

Also, a disc drill, as FJ said you could drill off-season crops row spacings may be a bit narrow, you could block off 3 rows,but the drill with the bar on  it looks a bit light for direct drilling,  the last photo is like the drills around here used for direct drilling,  guy near me last year direct drilled mung beans offseason in to his rice fields, this year he drilled sun hemp, which he ploughed  in last week, 

[farmerjo]

To add to what KS said you would be better off buying one with the fertilizer boxes as well to give you flexibility.

The only thing i've found with my double disc opener drill is it struggles to close the furrow in wet heavier soils with the furrow closer arrangement when planting into unprepared land causing the seed to burst.

They work fine in prepared seedbeds(ploughed,rotovated)

There are other brands like mine where the discs are individually spring mounted so if you run over a stump or rock the whole seeder doesn't come out of the ground.

At the end of the day there probably the best availiable options for a seeder in Thailand without importing the real deal and would suit your needs as long as you prepare the soil first.

Has that got rollers or plates with holes in the seedboxes ?

The reason i suggested a tyne seeder is if your going to prepare the seedbed and have little trash on the surface it defeats the purpose of a double disc opener which is designed for direct seeding into non prepared soil.

IMHO the design of that seeder in the picture needs modifications to be reliable in non prepared soils.  

  

[IsaanAussie]

Thanks guys good information and a lot of new things to think about. Paddies have been ploughed and raked so far. This year it will be hand broadcast and rotary hoe the rice in as usual for me. Tuesday is the allotted "queue" day. As an aside, it is also the day the RBA announces new interest rate setting, If it goes down as expected, God help the Aussie dollar. 

[kickstart]

This drilling  of rice is a fairly new concept for Thai farmers, (but the wife 30 years ago said they ploughed the field sowed the seed by hand, and shut the field gate and waited for the rains, Whun Hang in Thai,)

The Thai machinery makers, looking at IA photos  they have not yet quite got the concept right ?,but as FJ said they are as good as you will get without importing a western drill, but saying  that, if the seedbed is good and the conditions are right and Somchie can use the drill the results are normally good .

FJ sounds to me if your drill could do with some rollers on the back to close the drill rows or some finger tines acting like a rake and closing the rows.

 

[Dumbastheycome]

3 years  ago  we were loaned a planter (disc type). Biggest issue was as Kickstart has mentioned was the  condition of the seedbed. We do not burn off residual  rice straw and the presence of that despite being turned under and theoretically dispersed by rotary constantly lifted the seeder leaving the seed exposed to  birds. I have seen a tyne  style used with an equivalent problem caused by gathering up  residual rice straw and other vegetation causing a  sweeping of the seedbed rather than any  seed trench.

So unless  your field/s are relatively "clean" then expect a lot of stop /start in the use of one. At least that has been  my limited experience.

We have since  stayed  with the hand  sowing and rotary under method. A "punch drill" seeder  would  be ideal but have  never seen one in Thailand.

[farmerjo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq8qHs9hcFo

 

It would not be hard for the local Thai manufacturers to come up with something similar.

Ok price of unit will be more but least would work consistantly.

To add 3 point linkage hydraulics don't have downward pressure so a heavy frame is also required.

 

[Slugs11]

This is our first year using a rice seeder/drill. Managed to buy our unit second hand. It’s a 7 row, with option to add fertiliser at the same time. The manufacture is “Kid”

 

In my opinion it performed very good. You do need to use clean seed, if not the rubbish will block up the discs holes. We used our own rice from last season, but picked all the rubbish and bits of straw in it. 

 

As as has been mention, there are a lot of moving parts, however if good maintenance is completed before starting drilling then should not be a problem. We ensured all bearings and drive cogs were well greased and oiled. Did not have no problems drilling 30 rai of rice with it. 

 

I see see people have mention rollers at the back. This machine have 2 rollers, one at the front and one at the back. We found the roller at the front was the most important, as he helped to even out the ground prior to the discs opening up the groove for the seed to fall in. The fingers at the back to cover the seed worked very well. So we did not use the back roller. 

 

The fields had the old rice stubble from last year, we used a off-set disc harrow first, and then rotovated prior to drilling. Had no problems with any of the old straw preventing the discs from opening up the soil for the seed.

 

We drilled the fields about a month ago, as you can see the rice has grown good. The picture of the rice field is where we got stuck twice last year when trying to plough with water in the field as planted late, this year we planted a lot earlier with having the drill machine and not get stuck once ????

 

Overall, believe it was a good investment as the rice seem to be more evenly seeded and germination has been better than previous years.

 

sorry for long post

[Slugs11]

Meant to add, the perforated restating seed discs can be changed for others ones with different size holes. Therefore you are able to drill maize and beans with it.  For these type of seeds, then would only use 1,3,5 and 7 seed hoppers, to allow correct distance between rows. We Intend to drill maize with it for cow feed 

[IsaanAussie]

Hope you don't mind a few questions. How much did yours cost? What tractor are you using?

[Slugs11]

Hi, happy to answer any questions you have.

 

We paid 60,000 baht, machine was 2 years old. It came with 3 set of rotating discharge discs for different size seeds. Believe the new price for this particular model according to the previous owner as he bought it new was 100k, though we never bothered to check if that was correct.

 

We just liked the fact not having to sow by hand, which is total guess work or grow seedlings and plant by hand later (this is where you stand a good chance of getting tractor stuck as fields have 6” plus water in them) Been their and got the tee shirt many times ????

 

I use my Kubota 4708 tractor. It would fit a 50hp or 60hp model no problem. It’s fairly heavy, so not sure if a 36hp would handle it. One advantage of being heavy, the roller at the front, level the soil and not just ride up over the top of it. 

 

 

[farmerjo]

Hi Slugs,

How many kilo's per rai of seed rice did that seeder put out if i may ask.

I had a backyard tyne seeder come in last year and seed after ploughed and rotovated

The seed looked a little heavy compared to yours and i do think it affected the yield.

That was on 10 inch spacings

Kid are up in the leaders here in rice seeding machines

[Slugs11]

Hi Farmerjo,

 

Estimate we used around 9 - 9.5per rai. 

 

The rice discharge discs have 2 sets of holes in them. There is a blanking plate which allow you to cover up the inner row of holes if required. Was not sure if to use just the outer row of holes or both. When we bought the machine, the previous owner had installed the blanking plates for the inner row, so we just used it as he had left it set up.. Glad we did not remove the blanking plates as the rice would have been seeded to thick. 

 

It seemed like we used hardly any amount of rice compared to how much you use when seeding by hand. I have heard you can go as low as 8.5kg rice per rai ?

 

Last year we seeded some some of the fields by hand, and it was to thick in places. In the areas where we had seeded to heavy, then suffered with the rust spot disease. The yields for those fields was low.

 

Hoping to see improvement with yields this year with using the drill.

[IsaanAussie]

I like the seed usage figures, beats the hand broadcast used around here. We have used up to 25kg per rai. But I suppose the balance is the yield figures. Best I have achieved in the past is 550kg/rai (HM 105).

So a few more questions for you.

What sort of yield do you guys get using a seeder?

How much lodging do you get this way?

 

[farmerjo]

I don't know,last year was the 1st time to drill rice.

Got the land prepared,seeded,fertilized then had a job come up.

When i got back there was only stubble and no rice.

So 100% lodging

[Slugs11]

This is the first year using the rice seed drill, therefore unable to quote yields.

 

We found on average we used approx 30% seed, compared to last year when we seeded by hand. Then had problems where it was too thick, had rust spot. There was also areas where the rice hardly germinated at all. Therefore our yields were low last year. 

 

This year with using the drill, have a more even rice seedlings. Would estimate we had nearly a 100% germination. So have high hopes for a good yield per rai.

 

Understand it may take a few years to get back the investment cost back of the drill, with hopefully better yields. However that is not important. What is satisfying, finally people in the village are starting to believe falang knows what he is doing and can grow good rice. The amount of people who have told my wife falang rice look very good and nice straight rows. That’s worth the cost of buying the machine ????????

[IsaanAussie]

Well it will be interesting to hear the results of the harvest later. I did a bit of opinion seeking around our village and found there had been a couple of drills operating close by last year as a trial. It was a drought year and most people had bad crops if any. But typical of this place it was obviously the drill at fault because that was the "only new thing". I haven't seen any usage so far this year. Amazing Thailand!

[farmerjo]

Finally got around to finishing my seeder off and done some dry commissioning.

Have it set up for sunn hemp,haven't done any calibrations for rice.

Just need a couple of inches of rain and will put it in action.

The fan is a electric blower powered by small genset till i can find a hydraulic fan.

Will need to import a proper 10 port head later to overcome the difference in seed rates in the rows.(3 rows go on a little heavier than the rest)

 

[IsaanAussie]

Very impressed. Two questions, how did it go on the weedy bit (thinking or stubble etc..)? How much will you charge per rai? 

[farmerjo]

7 hours ago, IsaanAussie said:

Very impressed. Two questions, how did it go on the weedy bit (thinking or stubble etc..)? How much will you charge per rai? 

The discs cut through fine as the little crawler has downward pressure on the 3 point linkage to keep the seeder in the ground,although i guesstimate it weighs around a ton now so normal linkage tractor(6610) will be fine.

The land i will be seeding has been sprayed still with a lot of trash on top(that trial was just on some unworked land)

The rolling harrows are just to tickle the dirt over the row,you have to put them on an angle of around 30 degrees to be more aggressive and remove weeds.

Sorry mate not for hire,just on the farm here.

Not a good picture of land it will be seeding into,might turn a few heads when its running around.

Farang pbar????