b'PARTNER CONTENTTesting Out a Planter onour SeedMaster FarmTrevor Paulovich, Rousseau Creek Farms in Deadwood, Alta.P lanters have grown in popularity in the United States, butplanter, it would require us to train all our staff on how to use it.you dont see as many in Alberta. However, that didnt stopThere were wear parts you had to replace every 600 acres our curiosity at Rousseau Creek Farms in Deadwood, Alta. Weon the planter. Theres also cups that must be taken apart and had heard we would be able to cut seeding rates by using acleaned three times a day. It wasnt a drill that was going to get planter and get better crop emergence.us anywhere near the acreage that our seeders do daily. We Last spring our local dealership brought a planter out to ourhave a short amount of time to get our crop in the ground and farm for a demo. The first day didnt go as planned, it was spentwe need to get as many acres seeded per day as we can.trying to get the settings on it right. There were missing partsOur soil conditions also arent the best fit for a planter. If the and parts that werent right for it. The planter didnt even make itsoil is wetter or cooler planters struggle to place the seed into the field that day. correctly, and where we farm in the Peace region we usually The next day we were ready to get rolling with it. We werentstart planting in the spring in cooler and wetter conditions. however able to distribute fertilizer with the seed. We alsoOnce the crop started emerging, we didnt find the planter discovered the canola seeds were cracking as they weregave it any advantages over our seeder planted rowswhich getting stuck on the plates used to meter out the seed.was the whole reason for using a planter. You could have drawn It took three days to get 100 acres of canola seeded, witha line in the field where the canola was seeded with the planter our SeedMaster seeders we usually plant around 400 acrescompared to our SeedMaster drill. It was seeded a day or so per day, making the planter not financially feasible for us. Aboutsooner, but it was probably a week behind in blooming.10 acres into the demo both sales guys said to us that a planterWe found its a more complicated process with a planter to wasnt the right fit for our farm.get the exact same result that SeedMaster has had out for 10 The planter was also too time consuming to set up. We runyears already. And to boot its an easier system to use with a 27,000-acre farm with myself, my wife Sharon and motherlower operating costs. So, for right now you wont see a planter Janice working on it, along with a staff of hired hands. To run arolling through any of our fields.Trevor Paulovich checking one of his canola fields during the 2022 growing season. PHOTO: TREVOR PAULOVICHSpring 2023 59'