Seeding with disc?

[jeff9366]

I currently use several used tires wired together and that has been working great for 5 years.

Great, cheap, approach; will follow your ground.

 

[Rmart30]

After being in numerous hunting clubs over the years and seeing people try to seed and cover it with a disk only it doesnt work well. Way too much seed gets buried too deep and never comes up.

What I found that works the simplest for me is first disking the plot. I keep a cross tie with 2 chains on each side that sits on the back of the disk. I flip it off the disk and with the disk off the ground drag it around the field to smooth it out some.
Then with a 50# moultrie seeder that I bolt to the front of the tractor with a remote switch to broadcast with I broadcast and let the cross tie drag just barely touch the ground and cover it.

Im no farmer , just a hunter with a tractor planting food plots but so far that is what has worked best for me.

 

[Jordan9682]

This is what i ended up deciding on trying out this year. Have my fingers crossed

 

[RedDawg]

After discing and broadcast seeding with the tractor, we drag a 5 foot spike harrow with 150# of concrete on it behind the ATV. Of course, we aren't doing any of that with 28" of rain in west central TN since the middle of January. I suspect I could disc the corn I broadcast and it would be fine but for the clover, wheat, oats and such the spike harrow works great as it doesn't get buried too deep.

 

[D7E]

Discs are awful for compaction and not something to cover seeds with either ....too deep in soft ground and ride out in hard ground and plough up slabs if wet that smother seed . Just broadcast seed then harrow .

 

[lakngulf]

Discs are awful for compaction and not something to cover seeds with either ....too deep in soft ground and ride out in hard ground and plough up slabs if wet that smother seed . Just broadcast seed then harrow .

I have been covering seed with a 3pt disc for years----oats, wheat, wildlife mix, chufa. Just yesterday I broadcast soybeans and sunflower and use the disc to cover. You just have to set the height to just barely flip the soil. I had to get after it quickly as the crows found the sunflower shed and were helping themselves

 

[super55]

It really depends on the seed you are using. Most food plot seed is very forgiving. Cereal grains like oats, wheat, buckwheat and cereal rye are very easy to establish. As others have said planting too deep generally is the biggest cause of crop failure. In most cases a disced field that has had a few days to settle and then seeded and dragged with a bed spring/chain link etc. is usually more than adequate for seed germination. For even smaller seeds it is even easier. Usually all it takes is broadcast and pack them in the soil to get good seed to soil contact. A cultipacker like ken referred to is the best tool out there for the job but in a pinch you can get by using your tractor/atv tires or a lawn roller to get them tucked in the soil.

A disc can be used just have to make sure you run it very very shallow. To the point where the discs are barely moving any soil. A deep cut will surely put too much dirt on top of the seeds and lower your % of germination.

 

[dieselscout80]

Before my father in law passed he used a disc seeder one was a old drill mounted on a 22' disc and the other was a Gandy air seeder on a 28' disc. I don't have any pics of his setups, but here is one on a three point mounted disc. The one thing this one seems to be missing a means to control the depth other than the three point. I would think some tires that can be set to control the depth would be best.

 

[kevin37b]

Nice rig . If you want germination roller or cultipacker .

 

[Ted Summey]

One of my plots of forage beans that was covered with a section of chainlink fence and a few basketball sized rocks on top. This pic was about 30 minutes ago. The beans are about 8 to 12 inches tall. They will grow another 4 to 5 feet between now and August.