New K-Hart drill

Do you think that drill will work in heavy clay soils?
I know a few guys looking at that drill but nobody wants to be the first one, because nobody can tell us, how that opener will perform if the ground is dry on top and wet underneath. Thats where so far the single disc drills like JD or NH will shine.

Joru I farm in a clay-loam soil, and although some of my dirt is heavier it would be nothing like what you or others on here farm. I believe the Hartman's have some gumbo type land though, and the opener has been used on that soil before. My guess is that it works as good or better than the single-disc unit so long as the scraper on the rear of the opener is set properly and discs are shimmed properly. Mine weren't set to a super tight tolerance but it was mostly a dry seeding season for me, and I had zero opener plugging issues even though seeding into some wet dirt at the end of seeding.

The unit on kijiji would be from Hartman's farm, where they are in the business of building and selling drills. I'm surprised they got that many acres on it, as I recall it sat parked for quite awhile in spring until someone could get the Bourgault tank behind it to work....

Low requirements for being famous these days. Ha ha

No, just ran it the one year. There was a few improvements made to production models relating to ease of adjustment and pretty much every concern I had about the machine was addressed. I guess you can be pretty nimble when it's a small company like that.

Just became a member to the forum and saw the chatter about KHarts Spyder disc drill. I know a little about disc drills because we have farmed with them for over 30 years now. My son and I farm 2500 acres in the Yellow Grass, Sask area. Our ground is heavy light brown soil . It works nicely when it is dryer, but can be very challenging when wet. Lots of my neighbors seem to be having good success around here with Air hoe drills, but I love the disc drills because they pull easier and seem to love no till. At one time we were pulling 45 feet of Great Plains Box drills with a 170 hp MFD. It worked ok, but really didn’t have the weight we wanted to seed into harder dryer ground . But I quess it wasn’t to bad because we put 19 years on that machine. Our disc drill now and for the last 13 years is a Salford 522 40 foot with mounted 185 bus fertilizer tank and mid row disc banders . The Salford had been just excellent in every way imaginable. However , Salford was bought out by the same company that bought out Macdon years ago, and is no longer being built. So, lately we’ve been looking at the Spyder disc drill. Here are some of my observations of both the good and the bad features that jump out at me about the Spyder. First of KHart has the best disc bearing on the market today- bar non! Secondly; the tires on the Spyder look like this thing should seed through water ( something we have actually done , to a point, with the Salford. The Spyder has a unique method of folding , that actually keeps the drill about a foot lower height than the Salford does. I haven’t got a shed that my Salford would go into because the 40 foot is almost 16.5 feet tall in transport. The Spyder has a very narrow Center section. This is great for transporting down a narrow road, but to me, the Spyder looks a little tippy because of this . Also , I really like the idea of the undercut disc arrangement ! This has got to improve germination, as the slanted trench is trying to collapse and cover up the seed with moist soil, just because of gravity. An open vertical trench , like the Salford makes needs a packer to close the seed trench. The Spyder is touted as having approximately 1000 lbs per foot( actually it’s a little less than 1000 lbs per foot) In my experience , it will seed good in softer soil, but I’m Leary about its penetration in hard soil, when your chasing moisture . Now , factor in that big 18 inch disc on a 22 degree angle with the surface of your soil , and you have a lot bigger foot print to try and push into the dirt than you do with the knife edge foot print of a more vertical double disc( like the Salford), requires. Contrary to what several others have said, the angle of the Spyder disc opener, will not have a tendency to suck the disc deeper; in fact , I believe it will want to lift out more . A major red light that I noticed on the Spyder is that the seed tubes are mounted behind the axle of the disc . This slides the seed down the back half of the disc instead of the front half. This actually causes the seed to ride on the surface tension of the up-side of the disc exiting the soil, instead of using the down side of the disc to “ press “ the seed into the ground tightly between the punch point of the two discs on each opener.( possibly the slanted undercut design of KHarts will compensate to some degree this problem- haven’t seen it in the field to know for sure.) Lastly, my biggest concern for my farm anyway with the design of the Spyder drill is the fact that the mid row bander discs , can only be put on the very front rank . To me this is totally undesirable for my ground and to be used when the seed discs are on 7.5 inch spacing . To my way of thinking, your seed discs should be the first to see the dirt- undisturbed , virgin soil. In our sticky soils , even the Salford disc would pick up enough soil and fling it sideways , to try and plug up the seed discs, if the mid row fertilizer is in front of everything else. I actually know of two farmers that set their drills up with the mid rows up front , and they are not happy with the penetration of their Salford drill , especially if it’s a wet spring. There is nothing more frustrating than seed discs that build up with mud on the sides of the discs , and stop turning . In our wet , sticky soils , this is also why we installed air filled packer wheels to our drill . There is still enough real estate moving in a wet year to bring the whole drill to a stop with semi pneumatic packers. Anyway, this post is way too long , especially for a new members first post. Hope I haven’t rubbed anybody the wrong way . I still think that the Spyder is shaping up to be a hell of a no till drill. I’m just not sure I’m ready to make the transition to it- - - yet!

If I had mid rows. They would be up front. 7.5 spacing the midrows would slide the top layer of dirt right over the seed row. I’ve seen that with 7.5” spacing without midrows.