Marcus Tucker’s curler seeder gained third place within the advanced class of our Farmers Weekly Innovations Competitors 2022.
Impressed by a stint working for a New Zealand contracting agency, Marcus Tucker returned dwelling to Devon and constructed himself a mix curler seeder.
Well-liked throughout the Antipodes, these easy machines permit operators to concurrently sow herbage seed and consolidate the seed-bed.
The farm he labored on used a Duncan Curler Seeder – consisting of a 3m-wide ring curler with a easy field drill – which did a very good job of placing the seed within the floor whereas leaving a weatherproof end.
See additionally: 12m Cambridge rolls consumers information: Choices and costs
Initially, he thought of importing one, however the prices had been too excessive, so he determined to construct his personal as an alternative.
The start line was a set of Twose Cambridge rolls, which he salvaged the rings from, and a Fiona field drill.
He then constructed a brand new 3m trailed body to hold the rings and he supposed to mount the field drill on prime of this. Nevertheless, it proved awkward to include the unique land-drive metering wheel.
As an alternative, he obtained maintain of a pneumatic hopper and metering system from a 40-year-old 4m Accord DL.
This leant itself to the job much more readily and the distribution head gave a bigger variety of retailers for extra full protection of his drill’s 3m working width.
Relatively than utilizing seed retailers on the tip of every pipe, he opted for distribution bins, as used on the Duncan, which give a extra even unfold sample.
The one problem of utilizing a 4m metering system is that he needed to do some severe number-crunching to work out the calibration settings.
Because the drill got here with a pto-powered fan, he wanted to plot an alternate technique of driving it. Relatively than operating an extended pto shaft to it, or changing it with a hydraulic unit, he opted to mount it on a headstock, proper subsequent to the tractor.
He then constructed a neat three-way swivelling hitch and got here up with the ingenious thought of piping the air to the fan although the drawbar’s box-section. This averted the necessity to have an unpleasant air pipe stretching from entrance to again.
For simple manoeuvring, he fitted a pair of rear transport wheels, with hydraulic rams to elevate the drill out and in of labor.
Ending touches included a following harrow made utilizing Kuhn sweeper tines and an extra rear trailed curler to press the seeds in. This additionally has hydraulic lifting transport wheels.