A drill with 920-bushel tank capacity

Seed Master, the drill making company from Regina, Sask., has a new 600-bushel tow behind tank that works in tandem with a 320-bushel on-board tank, providing a total of 920 bushels of seed and fertilizer capacity.

Norbert Beaujot, president of Seed Master, says the idea is to put seed in the on-board tank and fertilizer in the Titan III towed behind. You can also use the tank as a grain cart at harvest.

“It didn’t become obvious until later in the design process that this tank would have such a simple design, allowing it to be used for multiple jobs and giving farmers a new way to stretch their dollars,” says Beaujot.

No pressure

Titan III is not pressurized. Beaujot says existing pressurized air tank systems haven’t kept pace with the larger drills and high fertilizer rates that farmers are using. “These pressurized tow-behind tanks require a lot of air, hydraulics and large fans to blast high rates of seed and fertilizer to the openers, which can result in seed bounce and blow out.  As well, everything has to be blown through long transfer hoses — up to 75 feet on the widest drills — pushing the hydraulic capabilities of the tractor to the limit, and producers end up with costly problems like plugging.”

As the news release says, Beaujot was determined to find a better way of moving product from the tank to the drill. “The solution was to incorporate a drag auger into the Titan III design that mechanically and efficiently moves fertilizer from the tank to the drill where it is then metered and blown through hoses to the openers,” he explains.

The auger cuts the length of the air delivery hoses in half - eliminating plugging because of the shorter runs and dramatically reducing the hydraulic demands on the tractor, says Beaujot. “We save 12 to 15 gallons per minute in hydraulic fluid just because we can use two six-inch fans, instead of the eight-inch fans typical on large air tanks.”

Beaujot adds that because Seed Master drills use individual row metering from the seed tank, the system doesn’t require pressurized air. "The tank sits on our drill frame, and instead of blowing seeds against manifold plates which often results in seed damage, it continuously and uniformly meters seeds with rollers that gently drop them into air hoses leading directly to the openers.”

What's next?

Individual row metering is also better suited to seed singulation and sectional control, Beaujot says. Seed Master is working on both of these.