Conservation tillage row crop planter system

摘要

The planter includes a number of forward tillage units each followed by an aligned planting unit. Both units are independently mounted by four- bar linkages to the planter frame. Each tillage unit includes a leading banded coulter followed by a pair of rolling row cleaning discs which are, in turn, followed by a fluted coulter. The system may be used in any of the following planting modes: (1) no-till planting, in which the fluted coulter only is used to prepare a narrow band of soil for planting with no trash removal; (2) ridge planting or till-planting, in which the row cleaning discs clear a deeper wide band before the fluted coulter while leaving bands between the row crops untilled; (3) minimum tillage planting, in which the row cleaning discs may be used to clear a shallow band of surface trash before the fluted coulter; and (4) conventional planting, in which the tillage units are raised and not used. Simple field adjustment can quickly convert the system to any of these plow modes as field conditions require. In each of the first three modes, an adjustable weight may be used to set the weight on the tillage units.