Comparative Performance of Four Planter Furrow Opener and Row Cleaner Arrangements in a Conservation Tillage Corn Production System

摘要

A study was conducted to compare the performance of four types of planter furrow opener and row cleaner arrangements at two crop residue levels on the amount of surface residues after planting, seeding depth, emergence rate index and seed spacing indices of corn in a soil covered with previous wheat residue. Residue levels were baled out and non-baled (untouched). Corn was planted with a planter equipped with the following furrow openers and attachment arrangements: double disc furrow opener precededby a row cleaner (DR), chisel furrow opener preceded by a row cleaner (CR), winged chisel furrow opener preceded by a row cleaner (WCR) and winged chisel furrow opener without row cleaner (WC). Results showed that WCR treatment at baled out residue level retained the least amount of residue on the seed row after planting. Measurements showed that residue level for all treatments were higher than the residue level required for establishing conservation tillage practices. An increase of ERI up to 15% wasobtained for this treatment as compared to CR and WC treatments. Double disc furrow opener preceded by row cleaner treatment resulted in higher percentage of ERI as compared to CR and WC, possibly due to less planting depth. The study showed increasingdepth is more influenced by furrow opener shape than the amount of bed residue. The lowest miss index was obtained for WCR treatment at baled out residue level which is desirable. Improvement in quality of feed index was found to be 36% for WCR treatmentwhen compared to planting with DR and WC treatments. Furthermore, this treatment decreased the value of precision index up to 45% as compared to DR and WC treatments.