Big rigs attracting attention at Borden

For some time Paul O'Meehan and his cropping manager Martin Brooks had been on the look out for a new seeding rig to use within their 11,000 hectare cropping program.

"We had a good look around and we were a bit interested in the SeedMasters and thought they would suit our environment and program," Paul said.

The pair travelled to Swan Hill in Victoria to see one in action and were impressed with what they saw.

"We wanted section control and a wider bar, but a big thing was we were looking for bigger tanks as we were keen to do more hectares with less fills," Martin said.

"When we inspected the rigs, we saw there were other impressive features such as load cells and hydraulic lids on the tanks and it also allowed for self calibration on the go.

"The one we inspected at Swan Hill had seeded 130,000 acres and had hardly had a thing done to it."

There are three tanks on the SeedMaster each with a capacity of 9000 litres, combining for a total weight of 27 tonne when full.

Paul said having now completed their first program with the SeedMasters they were pretty happy with their performance.

"We are trying to get 150ha with each fill in the cereals, which works out to about the equivalent of a shift," he said.

"We are covering about 13-14ha an hour.

"When you are on the go with no delays you could probably do 20-21ha an hour but if you take into account fills and shifting and so on it comes down to 13-14ha.

"We are sowing canola at about 9.5 kilometres an hour and cereals at about 10.5km/hr.

"As it is we reckon we are 25 per cent more efficient than we were before."

The narrow fold of the bar was also appealing, with travel required between properties which are spread across the Borden area.

"When it is folded up it is narrower than the tractor with triples on it and with new transport rules coming in that was a pretty important feature for us," Martin said.

Paul said they imported the machines straight from Canada, and admits it was a punt buying direct from the factory.

"SeedMaster sent out two builders when the rigs arrived and the big chief and support guy came at start up to make sure everything was working as it should," Paul said.

"If we had any queries or issues we would send off and email and get a very quick response."

Paul said they now had access to support in WA, with Direct Seeding at Albany recently being appointed as a SeedMaster distributor.

While the design of the rig looks complex, Martin said they were actually very simple machines in their construction.

"They are built tough and design wise they aren't too complicated," he said.

"We have made a few of our own modifications and anything that needed to be fixed we have been able to do quite easily here."

The SeedMaster bar contains an active wing brace, which prevents the bolt together frame from flexing and eliminates wing stress on frames that are 48 feet or wider.

The smart openers can be lifted out of the ground or lowered into the ground with an up and down switch and the lift kit with active flotation hitch enables better performance through heavier or quite wet soils.

Martin said one tyne had a load cell on it so as pressure comes onto the tynes, it made the braces tighten up to stop the bar from folding back.

"If there is no pressure it releases off, if there is pressure it comes on to keep the whole rig square," he said.

The tuneable towers on the bar have also made things simpler.

Working with the XeedSystem, product flow can be identified through each run in real time.

"They have a pretty slick blockage monitor systems on them," Martin said.

"The Canadians are big on having the flow that is coming out of the end head, the same as in the middle.

"The system is constantly monitoring the product flow in real time, and the monitor possesses an instant blockage alarm that is variable rate compatible and it can identify row-to-row variance in product flow.

"We can adjust the heads easily, using an app on the iPad to reduce variance and provide more precise distribution.

"This seeding I think we only had two blocked tubes, which was pretty pleasing."

Paul said moving to a bigger bar and the new seeder has seen average fuel use drop about 20 litres and hour.

"We aren't digging as deep with this bar and I reckon we are saving about 25 per cent a hectare of fuel," he said.

Canola is sowed at three quarters of an inch and wheat at an inch - but it can dig at 2-2.5 inches, Paul said.

In terms of section control, Paul said they were already seeing a noticeable difference.

"In the past the hectares between the seeder and sprayer were considerably different, now they are almost the same and it could equate to $100,000 worth of fertiliser and seed," he said.

"The air section control is simple and fail safe to run, it is old

school simple.

"The metering system looks a bit like a combine run and everyone that has looked at it has commented on how simple it is."

Martin said it did take a while to change the meter rollers from canola to cereals.

"It probably took us 45 minutes to an hour to change the rollers, but it is a once a year job," he said.