Esch No-Till Drills are excellent for food plots, cover crops, and pasture renovations. They provide more yields with better weed suppression with narrow row spacing and the ability to plant a variety of seeds. These drills are available in 5’, 7’ and 12’ widths.
Row Spacing
The Esch No-Till Drill’s 5 ½” row spacing makes it a popular pick. This allows you to have a more evenly balanced seed count per square foot, giving you better ground coverage and yields. And since your planting rows are closer together, the new plants will emerge and will be quick to create a canopy, greatly helping with weed management.
For applications where greater row spacing is desired (like corn), a plate can be installed in the bottom of the large seed box to block off the foam seed distributor. These are located in the drill’s toolbox.
Seed Distributors
The foam seed distributor allows multiple mixes at once, not partial to seed shape or size. This plant diversity improves your soil health, growing your crop yield. By precisely planting seeds without disturbing the soil structure, Esch Drills give optimal seed-to-soil contact, fostering healthy root development.
Seed Boxes
The Esch No-Till Drill comes with 2 seed boxes. The large seed box is for grains—generally hard seeds like rye, wheat, corn, and buckwheat. The ideal depth for most small grains is 1”. An exception is corn—you should plant this 1 -1/2” to 2” deep.
The smaller seed box is designed for warm season grasses, generally a lighter, fluffier seed. The seed will travel on the back side of the double disc opener and drop onto the ground, being pushed into the soil with the closing wheel giving you approx. ¼” seed depth. This is ideal for clover, alfalfa, and other warm season grasses.
These seed boxes enable simultaneous planting of different seed varieties or blends in one path yet have a different depth for each seed. For example, if you would choose to use oats for a nurse crop and want to incorporate clover or alfalfa, the small seed box would be used for the smaller seeds and the big seed box for your bigger seeds. Whether sowing cover crops alongside cash crops or integrating beans for nitrogen, the dual seed boxes enhance diversity and promote soil health.
Swing Tongue
The 12’ swing tongue allows the tractor operator to stay in the seat of the tractor and move the drill from working to transport mode. This enables you to safely travel up and down the road and with little time and effort, be switched to working mode.
Seed Depth
The seed depth is determined by the setting on the back side of the row unit. You will find a cast iron pin that is spring loaded. Moving this pin forward will give you a shallower seed depth, and by moving it backward, it will allow your seed to go in deeper. You can calculate that one set of holes is equal to approximately ½”. The best way to ensure that you are the correct depth is to simply dig up several seeds and measure.
Contact an Ackerman’s sales representative for more information such as maintenance or calibrating your drill. Esch No-Till Drills are key to a successful planting. Don’t go another season without one!