Fendt planter reduces compaction

DULUTH, Ga. — The way a planter puts seed in the ground is one of the most important factors for yield potential.

“This year we launched a planter that is designed to help growers achieve better accuracy, longer term agronomic benefits and greater control of planting with the all new Fendt Momentum planter,” said Arthur Santos, seeding and tillage marketing manager for AGCO North America.

For the 2020 growing season, AGCO representatives utilized the Fendt Momentum planter to plant test plots in Illinois, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Ohio.

“We did tests for singulation, downforce and the impact of compaction on plant health and yield potential,” said Santos, during the AGCO Fendt Momentum Virtual Crop Tour event.

“Healthy soil is made up of 50% pore space and 50% solid material,” said Jason Lee, AGCO agronomist. “The pore space is filled with air and water, and any time we drive a piece of equipment across a field, we’re compressing the soil particles, reducing the pore space and increasing the density of the soil.”

As pore space is reduced in the soil, roots have to exert a greater force to penetrate the soil, Lee said.

“With a lack of pore space, water cannot infiltrate down through the soil and be available for a crop,” he said. “Instead, we get a lot of runoff, and soil compaction also restricts the availability of some nutrients, so we’ll see nitrogen and potassium deficiencies.”

One of the most obvious symptoms of soil compaction is stunted plant height, which results in yield loss, Lee said.

“On average, soil compaction will reduce yield by 15%,” he said. “However, that will depend a lot on a lot of factors, including soil moisture, soil type, organic matter and equipment, so in extreme cases, it can be 60%.”

The No.1 way to elevate and minimize soil compaction, Lee said, is to avoid doing fieldwork when soil conditions are too wet.

“To check the soil moisture level, I like to grab a chunk of soil, roll it in my hand and pinch it,” he said. “If the soil falls apart and crumbles, it’s good to plant. But if I squeeze the soil clump and I get smearing and the soil ball doesn’t fall apart, that means the soil is too wet.”

In the compaction plots, for the most severe treatment the researchers turned the weight transfer system off and set the tire pressure at 55 psi.

“We saw stunted plants from the middle section of the planter,” Lee said.

For the load balanced section, the tire pressure was set low and the weight transfer set to load balance mode.

“All the rows are very even for plant height across the entire planter pass,” Lee said.

To evaluate the corn yield differences, the wing and center sections of the planter pass were harvested separately.

“In three out of five locations we didn’t measure any yield difference on average between the center and wings,” Lee said. “In the fourth location we saw a little yield difference.”

Researchers harvested one row at a time to evaluate the pinch rows, which are the rows that have tire tracks on both sides of the rows.

“When we restrict the root development on both sides of the plant, we limit the yield of the tractor pinch rows,” Lee said. “For the two pinch rows from the tractor the yield difference was 10 bushels per acre.”

For the North Dakota plot, the conditions were wet on the day it was planted.

“We dropped the tire pressure of the tractor to 17 psi, which increased the footprint of the tractor tire, and we created less ruts,” Lee said.

“We also turned the weight management system on which balanced the weight evenly across the six tires, and we prevented an 8 bushel per acre yield loss in the center section of the planter versus when we turned the system off,” he said. “That equates to a 3 bushel per acre yield advantage over the entire field.”

“At $4 per bushel, that’s $12 per acre,” Santos noted. “If you have a 2,000-acre farm, that equals $24,000.”

The researchers learned a lot from the five plots they planted in 2020, the marketing manager said.

“You don’t need to sacrifice yield to gain efficiency from a higher capacity planter, and there wasn’t any yield loss from the center versus the wings of the planter,” Santos stated. “In more challenging conditions, we saw the largest advantages in yield in North Dakota at 3 bushels per acre due to load logic.”

For more information about the AGCO Crop Tour, go to www.fendt.com/us/planters.