by Joe Brunker, Monroe, WI 

Prescriptions

Do you plan on doing any variable rate planting this spring? If so, now is a great time to work on them or sit down with your agronomist.  This will assure that your prescriptions are ready and in the right format for your display come spring.   All too often, we run into issues on the first day of planting of trying to get them into the display and working correctly.  If you have questions on what needs to be done please be pro-active and get a hold of us today.   We also have data management services available to help with this task plus spring software updates and pre-season display set-up.  You can learn more about our data management  service by clicking here.

Active Implement Guidance

Laforge Guided Planter Hitch

John Deere recently announced a new allied agreement with Laforage for a guided planter hitch. When combined with John Deere’s Active Implement Guidance, it will place the seed right where it needs to go. This would be ideal for strip till. Even if you are not strip tilling, you can see benefits from the consistent guess rows when you return to side dress, spray and harvest. The Laforage hitch has up to 20” of hitch movement available. The hitch replaces the factory 2-point hitch on 1770, 1775, 1790 and 1795 planters.

If you are looking for a hydraulic drawbar hitch or a convertible hitch (2 point and a drawbar), we also have Protrakker hitches available with up to 26” of movement.

Protrakker Hitch

If you have any questions on hydraulic hitches or active implement guidance, please give us a call.

SF2 Signal vs. RTK

As we get closer to planting season, we’re starting to get the question “what GPS accuracy level fits my operation the best”.  We recommended using SF2 or RTK for planting although we have many customers still using SF1 and getting by just fine.  SF2 and RTK both are noticeable improvements especially when planting in hills and contours.  Since John Deere moved the SF2 subscription renewals from their call center to the dealership a few years ago, we’ve taken a lot of calls to activate SF2 subscriptions at the beginning of the planting season. Many customers may not know what it would take to jump from SF2 to RTK.  John Deere’s year-long SF2 subscription is $1050 while Sloan Implement’s RTK subscription is only $1000.  If you already have a SF2 unlocked receiver, you only need a one-time RTK activation ($3500) and a 450 mhz radio ($1795).  That puts your first year total with the subscription at $6,295.  Next year you would only pay $1000 for the annual subscription. John Deere’s RTK signal is a repeatable 1” signal that will not move or drift from day to day or season to season.  Planter shutoffs can now be used with confidence for interior boundaries or water ways. They can also be dialed in for even less overlap while running RTK. The signal acquisition at the beginning of the day is almost instant vs waiting for the accuracy to improve with other Deere and non-Deere signals. Everything else, from autotrac performance to variety locator, is also improved with the more accurate and repeatable RTK signal. Talk to your Sloan Implement AMS Consultant for details on coverage for your area. Sloan Implement is committed to giving you the best accuracy available and we will be building additional towers in Iowa and Wisconsin in time for planting.  You can view our current RTK network coverage by clicking here.

National Farm Machinery Show

John Deere revealed several future products at the National Farm Machinery Show this week.  For 2017 they plan to have a MaxEmerge 5E row unit with an electric drive (no more electric seed clutch or hydraulic variable rate motors).

MaxEmerge 5E Row Unit

They also showed a hydraulic individual row downforce system that’s expected to be a factory installed option in 2017 along with a pneumatic closing wheel option (available now for limited models).

Hydraulic Individual Row Downforce

Pneumatic Closing Wheel

Sloan Support is written by the product support team at Sloan Implement, a 20 location John Deere dealer in Illinois and Wisconsin.   Learn more at www.sloans.com