Well let’s try to catch up. I’ll try to remember where I left off without forgetting to many details.
Let’s start with planting. We finished up with corn right there about the middle of May. Still had quite a few cool days for May, so the corn wasn’t taking off very fast.
It was time to start on beans. Dad just went ahead and starting drilling some beans as I’d helped my uncle finished up with corn. But before dad could drill I had to quickly look over the drill to make sure things were good to go. Greased it up. But there were three hydraulic hoses and that I didn’t like the looks of. I took them off to have new ones made.


So got the new hoses on. Fired it up and ran things about to make sure the fan on the drill was running properly, make sure all the air was out of the hydraulic system and to make sure that the monitor for the drill was working properly. Then BAM! a hydraulic hose blows! Luckily, not on of the new ones. But a different one, on for the fan, which means it runs from the tractor, all the way down the tongue, all across the drill, under the seed tank and back to the fan, at the very back.

So I took that hose off, drove 20 miles to the guy that makes our hoses. Got the hose, jumped in my truck, and right then and there the starter goes out. I was stuck. The guy that makes the hoses for us farms as well. They were having baler issues, planter issues, working on someone else’s tractor. So I called dad to come pick me up. While I waited on him I took the starter out.
We went back down the road, got the hose on the drill, loaded it up and got dad going. Luckily, our buddy Noah was around that day after school so him and I made a trip to get a new starter, went back out to the hose guy’s place and put the new starter in. What a day!
That weekend we had finished with corn so that Sunday I decided to switch the planter over to get it ready to plant beans.

It’s nice to not have to swap meters on all the boxes. But these larger bean boxes are awkward to put on and remove, especially, with them all close together. It makes it easy to fill the boxes with them all in back, but with things being so cramped together compared to that Kinze I’m going to absolutely hate working on this thing in a few years. But I got everything set for beans, checked things over, lubed the chains, greased everything, got the monitor set for beans, it was ready.
We had a few days of rain on and off. But nothing major. Every time they’d call for 2 inches or so we’d end up with maybe a half inch, which wasn’t a bad thing. After 556 acres of corn planted, there were just a few minor issues with the planter, mainly all due to factory issues. Hydraulic lines weren’t tightened. The stop for the “fold” switch/sensor wasn’t set properly, so the monitor didn’t think it was folded to plant, therefor wouldn’t fold out the marker arms (did I mention that?). Nothing bad, just annoying.
About 30 acres in on planting beans and we had an issue. Two rows weren’t planting way off on population. They started way low then eventually went way too high. It looked like something wasn’t correct in the meter, they warrantied the parts for us. Then it happened again. Now, this time I wasn’t able to be there to inspect it, which I wasn’t the first time actually either. But I assumed dad had it under control. Warrantied the parts, then it happened again, almost immediately. Same two meters each time. At this time I knew something had to be wrong that dad was missing.
Luckily, I’d purchased a parts catalog for the planter (you’d think they’d give you one when you buy it new, but no, they never do). I had a theory that maybe something was missing. I took off the two problem meters and then took off one meter that wasn’t causing an issue (why dad had never done this I’m not sure). Sure enough those two meters were missing 3 parts and a little screw.

If you noticed, circled in red, are the parts that should be in the meter on the left. A brush, a little rubber piece, a small plastic piece that holds down the other two pieces and a screw that holds all those piece in place. Those pieces were missing from the factory in two of the meters.
The problem here is that those pieces help control how much seed is going through the meter. Without those a bunch of seed would go at once, therefore the brush on the round black piece that is there would come off rather quickly, as it’s just glued in place. The brush would come off and then it really had nothing to slow the seed down. Each one of those black pieces with the brush is over $80 a piece, which luckily was covered by warranty. But, I had to go through all of this with the service manager at the dealership, I gave him the part numbers of everything I need to make things smoother. But then he forgot about it. Also, the part numbers for a few of the missing parts do not have a good part number anymore and they can’t even find those parts. So, we still don’t have the replacement parts. Not sure when we’ll get them.
So we had maybe 100 acres of beans planted with this brand new planter. Everything else we drilled. I fault for not taking more pictures but we actually finished with all the beans at the end of May, even the beans outside of the levee. Knock on wood, the river hasn’t been crazy this spring, which is surprising from what we’re used to. All I know is I don’t ever remember having all the corn and all the full season beans in the ground and coming up before the first of June, at least not in the last 12-15 years. So that’s a good feeling.