Questions about grain drills....

   / Questions about grain drills.... #1  

kebo

Elite Member
Joined
May 16, 2006
Messages
2,910
Location
Lexington, SC
Tractor
2001 John Deere 790 4x4, bar tires
Visited my folks today and found out from my dad that he was talking with the next door neighbor earlier this week while the neighbor was replacing some boards on an old barn in his yard. The discussion got around to a very old grain drill sitting there in the barn that had not been used in years. The neighbor no longer has a tractor and doesn't plan to get one either, so the neighbor knowing I had a tractor actually offered the grain drill to me, FREE!! So, I got to take a look at it today but didn't get to take a picture of it (yet). It looks to be about 6ft wide, and had nine disc's with 9 seed chutes dropping down beneath the seed hoppers to plant the seed. Both tires are dry rotted of course, and there's plenty of rust to go around on it to. But, it looks like it could actually be made to work again with a minimal amount of time, work, and money. The seed chutes are made of a flexible conduit looking material, one of them is like ripped open so it would have to be replaced. I think you might could actually use flexible conduit to replace it with. There was NO name on it or NO metal nameplate that I could find right off, but I will look a lot closer next time I'm up there, and take a couple pictures as well. The 4 seed hoppers were painted green though, but that's not much of a clue as lots of implements are painted green.

So, if I do get it and use it, it would be at my hunt club. We lease 1000acres and have a good many food plots that we plant in the fall. We typically plant oats, rye, peas, clovers, and a couple others varieties, depending on what we can get. Our usual planting consists of breaking the ground with disc harrows, then spreading the seed with a 3pt spreader, and then covering back up with the same harrow, or sometimes we just drag a piece of chain link fence or an old metal bed spring (weighted down) over it. We've even drug an old tractor tire to cover up the seed. I know this is not the ideal way, but we do the best we can with what we have.

Would the grain drill (if it does work) be a better way to go than all that above? Would the row spacing on the drill be of any concern?? We never planted in rows before! How deep should the drill be set to plant the seed?? What would be the best way to prep the soil BEFORE planting in fall? Usually by then all the food plots are covered with weeds, volunteer grasses, etc. Should we just bushhog them a couple weeks before planting? Would my JD 790 be enough tractor to pull it? I think it probably would be as it didn't look real heavy, plus I think the nine blades only dig down a few inches at the most.

You can tell by now I'm not a really knowledgeable person about this sort of stuff. I didn't grow up on a farm so don't hold that against me! ;) I'm curious to learn something about grain drills now. I did look at some modern grain drills on tractorhouse and man, those things are EXPENSIVE!! This one looks like it could be 30-40 years old. I hope I can figure out who made it, that would be interesting to know. But, thanks for any advice you can share.....

Keith
 
   / Questions about grain drills.... #2  
100 questions! Let's start off slowly and answer the basics.

First off, try to get a picture so we can identify brand and model.

Drills typically don't plant very deep. Most crops that you would drill don't need to be planted deep.

Certain crops, many of which you mentioned would likely do better drilled than broadcast IF....if the drill can be made to work properly.

The fact that it's on rubber tires (even if they are rotten) is a good thing! That should indicate it's not so ancient as to be impossible to find parts for. Some steel wheeled drills are not so easy to deal with because of age.

"Green" could indicate Deere (Van Brunt), Oliver, or several others.

That's a small drill. And that makes it somewhat valuable and HANDY for what you want to use it for. Smaller drills are kinda rare.

Generally, when I would drill wheat or barley as an example, I'd disc a couple times, then drill. Small seed crops usually don't need (or want) a deep, loose seedbed.

OK....get a picture or two and we'll work it from there!
 
   / Questions about grain drills.... #3  
Visited my folks today and found out from my dad that he was talking with the next door neighbor earlier this week while the neighbor was replacing some boards on an old barn in his yard. The discussion got around to a very old grain drill sitting there in the barn that had not been used in years. The neighbor no longer has a tractor and doesn't plan to get one either, so the neighbor knowing I had a tractor actually offered the grain drill to me, FREE!! So, I got to take a look at it today but didn't get to take a picture of it (yet). It looks to be about 6ft wide, and had nine disc's with 9 seed chutes dropping down beneath the seed hoppers to plant the seed. Both tires are dry rotted of course, and there's plenty of rust to go around on it to. But, it looks like it could actually be made to work again with a minimal amount of time, work, and money. The seed chutes are made of a flexible conduit looking material, one of them is like ripped open so it would have to be replaced. I think you might could actually use flexible conduit to replace it with. There was NO name on it or NO metal nameplate that I could find right off, but I will look a lot closer next time I'm up there, and take a couple pictures as well. The 4 seed hoppers were painted green though, but that's not much of a clue as lots of implements are painted green.

So, if I do get it and use it, it would be at my hunt club. We lease 1000acres and have a good many food plots that we plant in the fall. We typically plant oats, rye, peas, clovers, and a couple others varieties, depending on what we can get. Our usual planting consists of breaking the ground with disc harrows, then spreading the seed with a 3pt spreader, and then covering back up with the same harrow, or sometimes we just drag a piece of chain link fence or an old metal bed spring (weighted down) over it. We've even drug an old tractor tire to cover up the seed. I know this is not the ideal way, but we do the best we can with what we have.

Would the grain drill (if it does work) be a better way to go than all that above? Would the row spacing on the drill be of any concern?? We never planted in rows before! How deep should the drill be set to plant the seed?? What would be the best way to prep the soil BEFORE planting in fall? Usually by then all the food plots are covered with weeds, volunteer grasses, etc. Should we just bushhog them a couple weeks before planting? Would my JD 790 be enough tractor to pull it? I think it probably would be as it didn't look real heavy, plus I think the nine blades only dig down a few inches at the most.

You can tell by now I'm not a really knowledgeable person about this sort of stuff. I didn't grow up on a farm so don't hold that against me! ;) I'm curious to learn something about grain drills now. I did look at some modern grain drills on tractorhouse and man, those things are EXPENSIVE!! This one looks like it could be 30-40 years old. I hope I can figure out who made it, that would be interesting to know. But, thanks for any advice you can share.....

Keith

Love those old grain drills. Here's mine. It's a 1940s vintage Minneapolis Moline P3-6 drill with fertilizer box (the large one) and two grass seed boxes (the small ones). The fertilizer box is 10 ft wide, has 20 drops spaced on 6" centers.

DSCF0140Small.jpg


DSCF0141Small.jpg


My neighbor sold two of them to me for $275. I rebuilt one of them and use the other for spare parts. I added the hydraulic cylinder to raise and lower the single disc openers.

Plan to do some pretty extensive refurbishment on your drill. The fertilizer and seed cups on mine were rusted so I had to completely disassemble the drill, free up the rusted parts and thorougly clean and rebuild the drill.

DSCF0004Small-1.jpg


DSCF0202Small.jpg


DSCF0210Small.jpg


DSCF0018Small.jpg


DSCF0143Small.jpg


Have a ball.
 
   / Questions about grain drills....
  • Thread Starter
#4  
Flusher, thanks for the pic's and the comments. I was hoping we could use it mostly "as is" without a complete refurbishment. I guess it depends on how much is froze up and/or rusted up on it. I won't know till I get a chance to look at it much closer.

Bill, thanks again for your answers as well. I did do some research on the net last night and I'm fairly certain that this grain drill was made by John Deere Van Brunt. At least, I found a picture of one on the net that was similar to this one, but it was a wider model with more seed chutes, of course. I did learn one more thing about it, there was a piece of wood mounted on the back end of it, it looked to me like it was made for standing on. Well, come find out that is the "stepboard option" made to stand on LOL! I think it's purpose is for the operator to stand there and be able to see that the rows are lined up good. Hopefully I can get some pic's but it will be next weekend before I get back up there.
 
   / Questions about grain drills.... #5  
The step was for standing on while filling the seed box. Back in the day, seed was generally kept in 50lb bags after cleaning.
 
   / Questions about grain drills.... #6  
[The step was for standing on while filling the seed box. Back in the day, seed was generally kept in 50lb bags after cleaning./QUOTE]

On some of the drills converted over from horse drawn the step was also used to stand on when seeding. It beat walking.

In many places the seed was handled loose in wagon boxes and shoveled directly from the wagon box into the drill box.

The farmers would clean seed during the winter and store it loose in granaries. Come seeding time it was shoveled into the wagon bin, treated with the chemicals of the day and let sit overnight to be used the next day. This chore was usually done in the evening so the farmer would be ready for the next days seeding.
 
Last edited:
   / Questions about grain drills....
  • Thread Starter
#7  
100 questions! Let's start off slowly and answer the basics.

First off, try to get a picture so we can identify brand and model.

Drills typically don't plant very deep. Most crops that you would drill don't need to be planted deep.

Certain crops, many of which you mentioned would likely do better drilled than broadcast IF....if the drill can be made to work properly.

The fact that it's on rubber tires (even if they are rotten) is a good thing! That should indicate it's not so ancient as to be impossible to find parts for. Some steel wheeled drills are not so easy to deal with because of age.

"Green" could indicate Deere (Van Brunt), Oliver, or several others.

That's a small drill. And that makes it somewhat valuable and HANDY for what you want to use it for. Smaller drills are kinda rare.

Generally, when I would drill wheat or barley as an example, I'd disc a couple times, then drill. Small seed crops usually don't need (or want) a deep, loose seedbed.

OK....get a picture or two and we'll work it from there!



Bill, here are some pictures of the grain drill!!! I was up at my parents this weekend and walked over to the barn next door and took a few pic's of it. I'm 99% certain you are correct that the green indicates John Deer Van Brunt. I had not noticed it before (maybe because it was sort of dark inside the barn) but there is writing on the back side of the seed hoppers, it looks like it reads "John Deere Van Brunt" across the whole width of it.


Here is the first pic looking from just outside the barn at the drill. That's not the opening it will have to come out. The drill is parked at the rear of the barn and about 30 ft staight behind the drill is a door at the front of the barn. Apparently it was walked in by hand and parked there after it was last used, which might have been 10-15 years ago. Who knows?? Anyway, in this pic, you can almost count the nine discs, I think those long springs above each disc keeps down pressure on the assembly that holds the seed chute and the disc?? I didn't measure the actual spacing between each drill but it looks to be about 9" or so. The whole implement is right at 6ft wide. The tire on the left is an actual B.F. Goodrich 6ply ribbed implement tire (size 6.00x16"). It's a really old tire, it has the BFG written in a style used many, many years ago. On the lefthand side, just above the 2nd drill there is a little metal "box" that has "acres" and "tenths" cast into the metal plate. I assume that is how you adjusted the seed drop rate for the acreage you were planting by knowing how much seed you put into the hoppers?? I think the long shaft (which has a crank handle on the other end not pictured) with a U-joint on it was to adjust the depth of the seed chutes and the disc's.

GrainDrill006.jpg




This picture is also from the front, just taken from the other side.

GrainDrill005.jpg



Here is the telling picture, this is from the back. After I loaded it on the computer, I zoomed in and you can see a very faded "John Deere Van Brunt" painted in yellow on the backside of the seed hopper. From this angle you can easily count the nine seed drills and discs. Also, you can see the wood stepboard that goes across the back of it. I know you mentioned it was to stand on for loading seed (which would make it easier I am sure) but I did see a picture of a grain drill similar to this one that was being drawn by a horse and the operator was standing on the stepboard. So, I guess it served two purposes.


GrainDrill002.jpg


Lastly, here is a picture of some instructions underneath the cover for the left seed hopper on the right side (looking at it from the rear) that tells you to use a wrench to turn the feed shaft by hand with a wrench, and use kerosene to loosen tight feeds before starting the drill.


GrainDrill003.jpg



Well, that's it for now. I'm still going to get this drill for my hunt club and we're going to try and see if it we can get it working well enough to seed some of our food plots. We are fortunate to have a barn at the hunt club to park this under, along with the 1959 TO35 tractor we just acquired. BTW, I still haven't seen the tractor yet, but will post pic's of it (when I get some) in the other thread I started about it. I will post more (better) pics later on of the grain drill when I can get it outside in the sun. I think it will be pretty neat to have a few pictures of that 40-50 year implement behind my JD790! Thanks for any comments!

Keith
 
   / Questions about grain drills.... #9  
Doin' a little studyin' on the pictures. NOT an FBB, but not totally sure which model it is. Looks to be in fair condition. Wish you were closer, I've got a spare small seed box for that drill. (Fits most all Deere drills of that series) If I can identify it, I'll post back.
 
   / Questions about grain drills.... #10  
From my un-edumucated point of view....I think you found a winner Keith! Looks to be perfect for the intended purpose....likely can still find parts for it, if needed.(?) Hope it works out for you.
 
 
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