New K-Hart drill

Could be Sunflower and Amity were the same units, that rings a bell. This is 10 years ago I am trying to remember back. I seem to remember the row units at the Farm Show were grouped so that the mid row bander had a seed boot on either side spaced 3 inches away, so 6 inch seed row spacing, then they had a gap of 9" to the next group of fertilizer band flanked by seed row 3" to either side. So two rows at 6", a 9" space, and two more 6" rows. It was pretty busy as it was only like a three row machine with a good portion of openers along the back row. Units were spread around rather randomly to fit somewhere on the frame.

I don't see any disc for seeding pulling itself into the ground much. It has to run at an agressive angle and also has to bite pretty deep into the dirt. It's like any discer, run it at 1" deep and it is more likely to roll over trash, get the blades down 4" and it cuts through a lot. It's a feature the Pillar has in that the disc is opening the fert trench so biting in deeper and therefore cutting more than if the disc was running shallower for seed only placement.

I noticed no kind of disc scraper or cleaner in that vid. I often wonder if a guy really needs such a thing. It's nice to have, just wonder how much of a critical feature. Looks like k Hart says not too critical.

I am going to guess the mid row banders on the new frame will operate similar to the video. A complete sub frame that lifts.

Will be a design worth trying for sure. There are some known shortfalls of disc drills being addressed here.

Looks good! Sure folds up slick!

Actually no control box as of now, just depth stops on the raise/lower circuit for now, I believe they plan to make that automated eventually. When the frame is at correct height the opener has a 10" range of motion on the opener spring.

I would note these tires are temporary, the proper ones were delayed like just about everything this year. As dry as it is flotation shouldn't be an issue...

Nice! What’s the overall hight of the unit?

I would be eager to demo that drill. Lots to like. Will be interesting to see how disc wear is comparable to the others you use. I am getting about 5000 ac on the Pillar at 40'. Which is ok since it only does 1600 ac a year so every 3 years isn't too bad, but a drill doing 4500 ac a year it would be considered a lot of maintenance an expense per year. The nice thing is the sand and gravel here keeps the soil from blowing in these dry years.

Something to keep in mind, it is based on my Pillar but the khart may have the same thing to note since it uses springs. I retensioned all my springs last summer, my uneven flax germination raised some suspicions. So I rigged up a scale overhead of each opener to check spring tension and found variances of up to 20% between openers. The ones with the least tension were also related to delayed germination in the flax. So I adjusted spring tensions based on scale numbers and brought them all in to the same tension. I asked Pillar if they ever have concerns with variations in spring tension from manufacturer or some springs loosing tension at a different rate with age and they haven't looked into it. When building drill they tighten each tension bolt to show x amount of threads and call it good. So they really don't know if there are inconsistencies in spring rates even from new. So with the k Hart keep in mind there may be an assumption all spring rates are the same. Maybe they aren't. I had some unusual wear on some openers on the Pillar which I suspect may also be due to lower spring tension causing the opener to "chatter" more, ie move up and down more in firmer soil than if it was tensioned more to hold opener firmer in the ground. Going to put my first peas in the ground today so will get a better impression of the tension adjustments.

I didn't take pictures. I got a scale from Cabela's for hanging big game, good for 990 lbs. Set a beam up with posts on either end, wrapped a chain around disc spindle area, preloaded spring by moving disc upwards about 2" with a chain hoist in the rigging then took a weight reading. Settled on a value of 400lbs as "baseline" then set all my openers at around 440 lbs. Pillar says they have 650 lbs at the disc and I could have gotten to that number by raising opener a little more with the chain hoist. Didn't seem necessary, all I wanted to do was get a general idea. My observations from my flax was the center section had better emergence. My scale checks confirmed the center section springs all had more tension. The tension rods looked the same adjustment but perhaps a different batch of springs went on the center section vs the wings.

My wings definitely had less tension. One can speculate all day on the possible explanations. I had my suspicions and the scale tests confirmed it. It will take time to prove whether the adjustments change anything. In a normal year it doesn't matter, in another dry year like this one it may help. My disc scraper/seed boot was wearing excessively on some openers I beleive from less tension so more vertical movements so I won't know the results of retensioning till new boots get installed and a few thousand acres put on them.

Yeah. 17’2”. Is a little high for me. Too many overhead bridges and power lines. Need something 15’. Or 15’6”. To be safe.