Setting up JD 71 Flex planter for Sunflowers?

[Amos1]

I am new to using a JD 71 Flex Planter. I have planted corn with it and had great results!

I want to plant some sunflowers, and my planter came with a Lustran B015-16 (sunflower) plate as well as the filler plate (which I understand I'm supposed to use also).

My questions are:

1) What exactly is the filler plate for? What does it accomplish?

2) More importantly, how do you set these two up together (the regular plate in conjunction with the filler plate?)
I.E. When the planter hopper is off and upside down and you flip open the hinged door, do you put the Filler Plate in First and then the regular seed plate on top of that? Some other way?

Sorry if this has already been addressed... I browsed around but couldn't find anything on this topic...

Thanks in advance for any help you guys can provide!

- Dennis

 

[bjr]

Specifically the 71 Flex Planter Operators guide is available online from Yetter. They manufacture those units now. That may help. bjr

 

[Amos1]

Specifically the 71 Flex Planter Operators guide is available online from Yetter. They manufacture those units now. That may help. bjr

Thanks for that info, BJR! I saved a copy of the manual - very informative!

Unfortunately, I didn't see anything on using the "Filler Plate"

Anyone else plant sunflowers with the 71 Flex, or know how to install/setup the filler plate?

 

[jbooth]

Typically the standard plates are approximately .312 / 5/16" thick. The filler plate goes under the sunflower plate to make the sunflower plate nearer that 5/16" standard. The filler plate will have a boss on it to prevent rotation and hold it over the seed chute. I have seen some sunflower seeds that were big enough to use the corn plates. Main thing is to just get a plate to suit your seed size.

I like to set my planter up by installing the plates and then rotate the press/drive wheel and catch the seed in a pan. Inspect the seeds for cracking and try to determine if you are dropping a single seed each time a cell goes by the feeder chute.

 

[Agrantina]

I planted sunflowers 2 weeks ago with my JD 51 planter with B6-16 plates. Did fine- they where PEREDOVICK sunflowers. This is a good article to read from QU.

Quail Unlimited Information System v2

 

[Amos1]

Typically the standard plates are approximately .312 / 5/16" thick. The filler plate goes under the sunflower plate to make the sunflower plate nearer that 5/16" standard. The filler plate will have a boss on it to prevent rotation and hold it over the seed chute. I have seen some sunflower seeds that were big enough to use the corn plates. Main thing is to just get a plate to suit your seed size.

I like to set my planter up by installing the plates and then rotate the press/drive wheel and catch the seed in a pan. Inspect the seeds for cracking and try to determine if you are dropping a single seed each time a cell goes by the feeder chute.

Thanks a lot, JBooth! That makes perfect sense. I never noticed that the Sunflower plate was that thin. I checked a regular plate and the sunflower plate with the spacer butted up against it, and you are 100 percent correct - both are 5/16th. I should be good to go now... I'll be using the small, black seed and I measured the 3 dimensions with a slide caliper and the plate I have should work (the plate is a tad bigger than the seed, but I'm not planting that much, so if I drop 2 seeds now and then, no big deal...

Thanks for responding!

 

[Amos1]

I planted sunflowers 2 weeks ago with my JD 51 planter with B6-16 plates. Did fine- they where PEREDOVICK sunflowers. This is a good article to read from QU.

Quail Unlimited Information System v2

Thanks for that article, Agrantina - very helpful!