Argentina to Chile Across the Andes

We left Argentina to head to our last South American counrty - Chile and catching up with Carlos Crovetto. But Carlos had to wait as we got to see the Andes. Last time we saw an outline in the dusk, but this time. We only saw a small section of them as they run the entire length of South America.

Simply Awesome and Inspiring

Roads at 18,000 ft

Even Out The Window & Our Camera They Really Are Fantastic to See

AGRO URANGA

The following day I went South again to see a corporate family farm at San Nicolas and caught up with Frederico Arostegui and Jorge Staffolani. Frederico is the specialist seeds manager and Jorge is the overall farm agronomist/manager. Even though the farm is a family farm it must operate in a hard and fast business way with profits returning to the family shareholders. The farm only owns a few utes and one utility tractor. All of the operations are carried out by contractors who have been regulars over the past years. The farm pays over the award rates for these contractors which ensures that they get to Uranga at the right time. I think this is a good strategy. They also supply the contractors with letters of agreements for future contracting which helps them when buying new machinery and when seeking funding.

The Agrometal Assembly

On this particular day there were 3 different contract seeders there all seeding corn. One Bertini, one Georgio and one Agrometal. The Agrometal certainly looked the biggest and best constructed machine but I thought that the seeding positioning and singulation was not as good as the others.

 A New Planter Sowing Horizontal Precision Box

 To keep getting a good return the managers and farm company attracts a premium for the crops that it grows in its seed selling role played by Frederico. Some of the seed crops that they grow are popcorn, yellow corn, green peas, chick peas and beans. They like using these crops as they are still classed as a specialty grain and do not attract the same export tax for commodities such as wheat. This is one of the issues the farms have in that even though they are attracting money from overseas, if they grow wheat they have to pay the 30% tax to the government.
As mentioned in the APPRESID visit, there is a lot of problems with soyabean over use as it is an easy cheap crop to grow and most of the land owners want the soy beans as their payment. This means there is too much grown in the rotations in Argentina. At the Moment the specialty crops haven’t attracted this tax although Frederico feels that in the near future they will start to. The best rotations are with green peas, soy then corn or wheat, soy then corn or utilising popcorn instead of the normal yellow corn. At present 70% of the farm is double cropped and they want to have 100% double cropped by 2015. At the moment they are even getting 5 crops in 2 years in some areas. The farm is looking to find a good spring crop replacement for wheat and they feel durum might be an option but not while the US have their subsidies in place.

Back in Rosario at Garden of Flags Monument

Not too Many Flags But Some Good Statues

Bertini's in Action

Puken Alvares lives south of Rosario and due West of Buenos Aires so we set off early in the morning and went to see a number of the model 32 seeders in action on his farm. The sowing width was just over 8 metres with a seed and fertiliser box along the entire width of the machine. This would mean that for us going from a 2 compartment airseeder box which is filled from one location to needing a movable auger and truck system for loading the combine.

Filling Seeder

When viewing the machine in action it had particularly good cutting (although a bit aggressive) by the coulter through a thick corn residue with a very even sowing depth and distance between seeds. The large wavy coulter was being used and on the soft sandy soils in that area there was too much soil throw.

Definite Path to Show Some Disturbance (No Trick Photography)

Seeder With Marker Arms

The machine has an ideal length and also had a tow hitch on the end to drop the transport width down to 3.5 m. With the assemblies fully lifted it gave an excellent high clearance for transport.

High Lift for Transport

 Farm Manager, Enrico Bertini, Puken Alvares, Me (No Name to Balance Manager) 

The contractors gave the machines a good recommendation particularly in the area of low maintenance. Their rotation that we saw was corn corn legume legume winter cereal winter cereal. This type of rotation is known as a double stacked rotation. The two corns give a very good control of weeds and produce an excellent amount of biomass. It was good to see the drills in action and it gave me a good idea of what Enrique and Luis had been talking about. We made our way home late at night but the time passed quickly as we had some good discussions regarding disc drill setups.

One area of debate is the setting of the front coulter as to whether it should be set deeper than the double disc seeder unit or if it should be set shallower. As the double disc has the depth control wheels attached I feel that the front coulter should be set 5 – 10 mm shallower than the double seeding discs.

Bertini Disc Drills & Combines

We had talked to Enrique Bertini via Luis Baima prior to coming to South America as we already had a small research size combine through SANTFA and Jaques Desboiles at AMRDC at uni of SA. The two gentlemen agreed to host us for a couple of days around Rosario which included a tour of their Bertini production plant.

The Bertini Triple Disc

They produce a range of size seeders and for a range of different applications. The sizes range from 4 metres to up to 19 metres and the applications include precision planters, small grains, drills and pasture seeding renovations. The Bertini drills have a triple disc assembly, the unit is attached via a parallelogram, there is a front coulter, a paired double disc with dual depth control wheels, a seed firmer and a slot closer and fluffer. In undulating ground the machine needs between 5 and 5.5 hp per assembly. Enrique and Luis said that they would work with us to create the ideal seeder for us if we choose a Bertini. This flexibility is very appealing.

Lois Showing Off His Metering Wheel and Travel Mode He Designed

We had a good look around their facilities and it was impressive that they made all of their own parts except for the plastics and are always researching, developing and improving the quality and function of their seeders. It is interesting that Bertini don’t use a vacuum delivery system in their precision planters but use a pneumatic air pressure to press the seeds against the singulator wheel.

Precision Planter Singulator

At the moment there is something like 30000 disc machines working in Argentina and they are turned over every 3 years. Ther is approximately 30 disc maufacturers.

Enrique and Luis took Nikki & I out for tea and we enjoyed the Argentinian hospitality and their BBQ meats!!!! with red wine of course.

Scenes around Argentina

Meat For All Tastes

The BBQ's are great in all of South America. The Brazilian's rotisserie their meats and then do fruits for dessert. The Argentineans grill theirs over coals and the Uruguyans set up a mesh screen over a fire.
The Chileans use a variety of ways.

Mt Vulcun

We have done a little bit of touristy things but the countries are all beautiful once you get out of the cities.
I like the look of the horsemen and the way they control the horses.

Gaucho Family

All the Food Groups - Meat and Veg

AAPRESID

Rosario is the home of AAPRESID, the Argentinean Direct Seeding Group. They are very large group with members across the country. AAPRESID hold an annual congress and they bring in speakers from all over the world and it is attended by 2500 farmers. It would be a good opportunity to go to this year’s congress in August. They run other smaller workshops and mini conferences throughout Argentina. The group delivers regular newsletters and technical papers.


A new tool for AAPRESID is the Certified Agriculture program. According to Augustine Biachi Certified Agriculture is a quality management system for the productive processes under No Tillage. It has been designed to improve the business management and to optimize the resources-use efficiency. As a result, we obtain greater productivity within an environmentally friendly and energetically sustainable context. It constitutes a key step for the institutional life of AAPRESID.

It is supported by a 20-year experience in No Till practice –a productive system based on the absence of soil tillage, on crop rotation and the coverage of the soil surface with crop residues. This procedure allows farmers to achieve a rational, sustainable and even reparative use of the agro-ecosystem basic resources like soil, water, air and biodiversity. It seems to be a very good program. I feel this will be adopted across a number of countries.

To achieve the CA title farmers need to satisfy AAPRESID in the following areas and show good agricultural practices.
1. No Soil Disturbance / Presence of Soil Residue Cover
2. Crop Rotation
3. Integrated Pest Management
4. Efficient and Responsible Agrochemical Management
5. Strategic Crop Nutrition
6. Stockbreeding Information Management

Farmers are in the process of getting their certification for 90,000 hectares and 1 farmer has just become certified.
When I asked Augustine what the three major issues for farmers were he said:
1. Government tax on exported grain particularly wheat as it is already a low return compared to other crops so a vast percentage of farmers do not plant Wheat or any other winter or spring crops. The diversity of the rotation and maintaining ground cover is best practice, but not if the farmer could lose money or not even break even.
2. Another problem is crop based with most of the rental or lease payments being done in Soybeans. The payment is 1.6 tonne per hectare (8 Bags) per annum. This put pressure on farmers to plant a large amount of Soybeans each year. The price compounds the issue as it is also the highest return. About 85% of warm season crops in Argentina each year are Soybeans and this represents an inadequate rotation with problems like soil residue, chemicals (Glyphosate)
3. Cost of production and if land is leased satisfying owners and their payments

www.aapresid.org.ar/english/index.asp

Horrific Traffic & Bad Day for Young Wallabies

Nikki and I flew into Buenos Aires from Brazil and got through all of the checks relatively easily. Then we headed out in our new hire car. The traffic was banked up whereever we went and they were just as crazy as their Brazilian neighbours. Only this time they could go 130km/hr legally so I think they were going 145-150 and right up someones arse.

Sunday arvo Traffic Out of Buenos Aires

We headed out to Rosario which is 3 hours north of Buenos Aires. We got there Sunady arvo and settled in to the Hotel Ariston. We found out that it was public holiday on Monday and everyone and everything was closed on Monday. We found out that the World U18 Junior Rugby championships were held in Argentina and the Grand Finals were in Rosario on Monday evening. What a great score!

Springboks vs Red Roses

We bought tickets and saw South Africa give England a touch up so they were 3rd and England 4th. The final was between arch rivals NZ & Australia. The game started and the dreaded Kiwis scored inside the first 2 minutes. Things looked black and I think the organizer went out and got the trophy engraved.

One for the Girls - Winners are Grinners

The All Blacks gave us a pasting. The Wallabies had made it to the grand final which was good but the Kiwi's were just too good.

The Lovely Locals Who Spotted the Only Aussie in the Cheap Seats

The highlights were getting to see the game in the first place and then getting to meet some of the locals. At halftime I went down to the sideline to see the field and they had a womens seven a-side, which was good to watch and their skills were very good. The ground is normally used for soccer and there was big 20 metre mesh fence behind each end but then I looked over the side panels and there was 5 metre deep moat around the ground aswell. 

Holiganism at a soccer matches obviously a bit of an issue!!.

Ponta Grossa to Sao Paulo

Today we drove back to Sao Paulo. Everywhere we looked on the way back we saw plantations of Blue Gums. Our own trees here in Brazil. According to Richard they have them in for fuel for burners and steam turbines. On his farm they plant them in six rows. They are ready to pollard / cut to 1m above ground at six years and then each row is cut yearly.

Blue Gum Plantations

The roads here are crappy at best, a dogs breakfast at worst. Driving was okay until we hit the outskirts of Sao Paulo and the drivers were nuts. They change lanes at the drop of a hat and it was bumper to bumper at 120 km/hr. We took a couple of wrong turns only because we could not change lanes. Amongst all the cars were dozens of motorbikes doing 80 through the cars line up at stops and lights. It was nice to finally get to the Hotel.

RR- Ratshit Roads

Good Integrated Farming

In the afternoon we went on a farm visit with Richard Dijkstra. This was an excellent visit to see an integrated farm with a positive production model. The farm started with Richards grandfather arriving from Holland on a ship with 40 cows and 1 bull. At one point the bull jumped ship into the water and the boat had to turn around and hoik him out of the water. When his grandfather arrived he was offered 10000 acres as a trade for all of his cattle. Instead he sold 1 cow for 60 acres of land and built up from this. The bull that he bought across from Holland has provided much of the cattle genetics across the state of Parana as after he had finished using him after many years, the bull was then sold to the government and used across the state.

Nikki, Juca & Richard Atop The Effluent Screen

The size of farm is 1500 ha half of which is continuously cropped for grain production and the other half of the farm is utilized to produce feed (mainly silage) for the dairy enterprise. As well as the arable cropping there is a 480 cow dairy, and a 380 sow piggery. All of the dairy and pig effluent is firstly passed through a shit screen where the solids are removed and carted off to a compost pad out in a paddock. In this effluent there is 5% solids and 95% water. The liquid effluent goes through 2 bio digesters . it is 60 -70000 litres of liquid manure and this produces 1500 – 2000 m3 of methane. This methane is used to dry grain and to heat the piggery sheds. Once the liquid waste has passed through the bio digesters it is used for irrigation on the feed production side of the cropping property.

The composted manure is turned on average every 3rd day in winter and daily in the warmer weather. It takes a total of 40 days composting until it is ready to be spread out in the paddocks at a rate of 5-10 t / ha based on soil testing. There can be considerable loss of Nitrogen but to stop this you can apply gypsum at 5% or 50kg/t of raw manure. The compost has a pH of 5.5 -5.8 and as well as giving good N in the form of organic matter it adds .6% phosphorous to the soil as well. When this compost is applied at 5t/ha the soil receives 30 kg of elemental P. Because of the pH of the compost and his production model, lime is added at a rate of .5t -1t/ha every second year.

The Effluent Treatment & Bio-digester Bags

The crops that he grows are corn, barley, soy beans, black oats and millet. These are used as either grain, silage or cover crops. Richard cuts his corn for silage and he averages 12t dm/ha at 12% protein and does a lot of soy bean silage at 6t dm/ha and 24% protein. When these two silages are mixed with some grain and additives they make a very good total mix ration. When he uses a cover crop he seeds straight into the crop which has been given an application of Glyphosate. This was very intersting to see.

Seeding Barley Straight Into Standing Japanese Millet

Whilst we have been in Brazil we have seen a lot of successful co-operatives and I quizzed Richard on his thoughts on co-ops. His plain answer was that they make him money when selling and save him money when buying inputs. So the farmers really benefit greatly from them. The average size of a co-op farmer is 200ha so Richard farms one of the larger areas in his co-op. A number of years ago 3 co-operatives formed the ABC foundation to run the farmers own trials. Each co-op has two farms in their areas that they use for farmer owned and directed research of 45 ha each. To be involved in the foundation it costs farmers R$12.25/ha of trial site so approx R$3300/year. There are 2000 co-op members so the foundation has plenty of funds to run the trials.

Richard, Slim Guy in Blue and Juca Discussing Zero-Till

I asked Richard what problems if any had he encountered when making the shift from conventional till to no till and his major problems were the quality of the machines for cutting through residue, poor herbicide availability at the time and it took about 4 years for some of the nitrogen stored in the residue to become available so during that time he had to increase his N fertiliser rates. After corn he found the remaining residue given the high yields that he was achieving were hard to cut through for any machine. So straight after harvest he utilises a homemade knife roller made out of old discs.

Disc Cutter Bar

Ponta Grossa University

Entrance to Uni

Professor João Carlos de Moraes Sá. Juca Sa' for short, agreed to meet us at our hotel in the morning. He gave Nikki and I an excellent full day. We firstly went to the State University of Ponto Grossa where he is a Proffesor. They run two separate farms; one for research and one as a commercial operation. The university has 8000 students and 1100 staff. Working on the farm there is 1 manager, 1 agronomist, 3 techs and 10 workers. In the agronomy they have students mainly from Parana State. They also get a number of post graduates from around the world. Each year Juca runs an intensive 2 week program for invited researchers, scientist and agronomist from developing countries. The invitation comes from CIRAD which is a European organization which aids those countries to become more self-sufficient and replace import foodstuffs. The course has a long title like Juca’s name, Organic Management in Cropping Systems for Carbon Sequestration, Soil Quality, Economic and Environmental Quality

Juca was very keen to show us both farms. He purposely went to the research farm firstly and the research they were doing was to look at rotations and the order of crops within them. They grow both warm season and cold season crops and both legumes and cereals, but no oilseeds. Currently they are working in collaboration with a couple of major agribusiness companies researching cover crops, new chemical formulation and other stuff that Juca did not elaborate on. There was all the usual trials by other professors and staff at the University, which sometimes conflicts with the smooth running of this section of the farm.

At the commercial farm all of the work carried out here was industry best practice and new practices that Juca wants to show to farming community. This farm was as Juca promised. The crops that were in the ground were looking excellent and there were some paddocks just seeded and others were brown, not with dirt/soil but with residue. There was no bare ground other than the roadways.

Juca Looking A His Own Residue

As they receive more rain than us, a hell of a lot more 1500 mm/year, they can grow a multitude of crops and at different times to our single season crops. Juca kept on reminding us that organic matter / biomass was the most important component in the system, this comes from growing quality crops with healthy roots and not taking that residue away in the form of straw, burning or cultivating and not exposing the root material to oxygen which accelerates respiration and loss to the atmosphere.

They grow a couple of cash crops a year and slip in a cover crop to increase biomass to a level above 6 tonnes per hectare as this is how much is used in their system. So Juca wants to exceed this to increase the organic matter in the soil. Juca’s favourite mix of cover crops, are Radish and Black Oats and sometimes  some vetch.

Juca and That Bloke in Red Again
This mixture is good as each has a different Carbon to Nitrogen ratio. The ratios are important as it gives a very good idea on how long the residue takes to break down. The higher the Nitrogen component, the quicker the residue breaks down. Vetch = 13.5:1, Radish 16:1, Black Oats 32:1. This type of mixture gives a balance of those nutrients over time.

Three Crops Residue

The crops that had just been sown were coming up in a very even manner. Wheat was sown into three different crop residues; Soybeans, Corn and Cover Crop. A lot of the Soybean residue from 12 months ago had already broken down. Whereas the other two still had a lot of residue covering the soil. Juca was quick to point out that these different rotations need to be managed to stop any bare soil being seen and possibly eroded. All of the commercial farm looked very good. The farmers in the area, of which there is roughly 12000, come to the farm for field days and are in regular contact through newsletters etc. After being out in the paddock we went in to see Jucas laboratory and we met Flohan who is a French post graduate. He is working on new methods to evaluate carbon in all of its different forms in the soil. Juca had set up a display of soil graded into the different size particles of organic matter and of water stable aggregates. The 3 sizes that tillage affects the most are >20mm , 8 – 19mm and 4-8mm. It takes a reasonable amount of time to bring these aggregates back from destruction when a tillage operation is used. These are very important as when these are fully water stable the risk of erosion is lowered dramatically.

Organic Matter through to Small Aggregates

I asked Juca the question “what would be your ideal zero till system?” His response was

1. Be able to cut through a large amount of straw without hairpinning

2. Soil needs to be lazer cut with no soil disturbance and no cutting camber.

3. Seed needs to be placed at ideal depth eg 20mm wheat

4. Double offset disc with a single disc coulter on the front.

Having a Discussion About Precision Planting of Crops Other Than Corn, Sorghum & Soybeans

The Farm's Precision Planter - Nothing Flash But It Does A Good Job

As it always seems to happen whilst walking back to the car we met another researcher. Professor Claudio Purissimo is a weed specialist and in his time going from conventional tillage to zero till he has seen a reduction in in-crop grasses and annuals but has seen an increase in perennial weeds.

In Argentina he has seen a growing resistance to post emergent grass herbicides. This is coming into Brazil when farmers trade illegally over the fence/border.

We had a discussion on GMO crops and how the cost to produce them has risen dramatically. At present you have to buy the seed from the seed company each year at R$600/t and then pay a tech fee on top of that at .42/kg so all up a tonne of grain will cost R$850/tonne. The big companies have access to silo records and if you do not pay the tech fee at purchase (ie, seed from over the border) they are charging 2% of total delivered at the silo and they want to increase this another 2% across all farmers if the yield is above 50bags /ha, as they feel that it is the technology giving the higher yields not the farmers good management. This works out to be another R$500 per truckload. These companies appear to have a huge stranglehold over the farmers and appear to be limiting the farmers ability to make a profit to line their own pockets.

I am pro GM however I have some reservations in that I believe policies need to be put in place to stop companies monopolising the whole process.

Kuhn Factory In Passo Fundo

Elvio Ransolin met me at the gate and took me in for a short talk about the business. The Kuhn company is based in France and has three other factories in France and two in Europe, one in the USA and two in Brazil. Then off we set around the Kuhn factory. A lot of the components are made on the premisis and are cast steel or form work. The only parts that they dont make are the seed & fertiliser tanks which are plastic or fibreglass and they come from the united states. Although they are not as big as Semeato they have a comperable range of seeders. They are also making 3 point linkage boom sprays and 3 ppoint linkage misters.

The Assembly of SDM Was Excellent

The assembly that I was most impressed with was the SDM 2323/31 this machine is designed to be used with coarse grains such as riche and wheat. The difference between this and the Semeato disk assembly was that it had a parrallelogram to connect it to the frame of the seeder. On the rice unit there is an option available for a precision planter attachment. It is not as good as a vacuum planter but will enable course grains to be sown with better precision thatn with a normal airseeder or combine. The unit has a horizontal plate tin the canister rather than a vertical one in a vacuum, this has made me re think my ideal seeder, when you look at the ability to have more control over your seeding rates. Some more investigating of this is warranted.

The Small Precision PlanterBox May Have a Role in Our Seeding System

The Kuhn factory shut at 3.30 pm to let all the workers go home to watch the Brazil soccer match. They employ 450 people from throught the town and area and have regular busses to pickup and deliver the workers each day. The company also supplies lunch for all of the workers. The quality of the combines in particular was very evident and I am going to look into this company and their products a bit more.

Brazil Soccer Nuts

Over lunch I tried to visit a number of machinery resellers in Passo Fundo and only one of these was open. This is probably due the the whole country shutting down to watch the first match of the world cup whre Brazil played Korea. I was able to chat with the new Holland dealer who had a Kuhn disc seeder in his yeard. Most of the communication was through hand signals. But he told me the Kuhnn were actually manufactured in Passo Fundo and he tee’d up a visit for me. After lunch I found the Kuhn Factory in the industrial estate.

Embrapa - Trigo

In the afternoon I went out to Embraba – Trigo. Embrapa is the Brazilian Government Research Stations. I met up with Dr José Eloir Denardin and Rainoldo Alberto Kochhann. They are researchers who have done a lot of work with soil charactristics, siol biota and nutrient cyclying in arable soils with differnet tillage practices. There are a lot of research projects around the world, I now wholeheartedly believe that the Zero-Till cropping system is THE way to go system.

There work particularly focused on all of the characteristics of soil that go to making up the term fertile and productive. They had a project with local farmers to improve their productivity and economic viability, through fertlile soils; How to construct a fertile soil and How to maintain one. It came down to production of plant and root biomas higher than the rate of decomposition.

Biomass Above Ground

Biomass Below Ground

It was a very big project, which included macro- and micro-nutrients (positve and toxic levels), pH, bulk density, organic material, porosity and soil organisms from bacteria to earthworms. When the bulk denisty increased due to cultivation the water holding capacity went down. On the other hand when bulk density decreased due to organic matter, the water holding capacity went up. This is very important in our drier climate if we can build biomass.
They have been doing this trial for a number of years and have had some very positive outcomes. Local farmers used to only grow 1 cash crop per year and now some are dabbling with cover crops to build up biomass but this bring no return. The researchers have worked with breeders of corn to get very short season varieties, and are utilising millet, soybeans and brachiaria to now give 3 cash crops in 2 years but also have 2 cover crops which can be grazed. The overall result is 5 diffent crops in 2 years. This has been tried on Embrapa’s farm for a couple of years to refine the sytemand they are ready to take it to the farmers.

I dont think we can grow 5 crops in 2 years, but maybe down the tract we may find another crop that we can grow in spring and summer (not a full warm season crop). We have in the past found the next thing to help us keep ahead of our overseas competitiors. eg Lentils & Oaten Hay.

As each visit goes by every one is helping form a good picture in my head and in my notebooks and it is becoming cleaer what is going on in the soil.

On tuesday I again caught up with Dr José Eloir Denardin, to go through some revision of soil processes that we learnt about at Ag College. It was good to get a refresher course.

Semeato Factory Tour

On Monday morning I caught up with Tiago Martelli. Who is the Export Manager for Semeato a machinery manufacturer who specialize into disc seeders. Tiago took me out to their head office. He gave me a presentation on the company and the No-Till scene in Rio Grande Do Sul. They are very proud in the quality of their finished products They employ 1500 staff and the company gives the staff lunch each day.

I had met Tiago in Australia at a No-Till Field Day and he was very happy to show me the companies plant where the TDNG range of seeders are made, which look like a very suitable drill for my current needs. They also make some of the precision plants at the particular plant.

1. Twin Disc

2. Seed Tube

3. Depth Control Ring

4.Slot Closer

5. Seed Placement Tube

All of the seeders are manufactured here and every piece except tin work is plasma or laser cut. The discs are cut here and there was a lot of waste between disc. They now sell a range of knives, machetes and pandangs, made from the offal pieces. I will see if I can get my new one back to Riverton.

The seeders utilize a double disc which are different sizes (15.5’ & 17’) and offset to create a better cut action and to stop mud building up on the discs. The depth gauge is a ring on the side of the larger of the two discs. The slot closing device is a cast press wheel on an appropriate angle. Each unit is independent and follow contour very well. The downward pressure is adjusted by two rams which rotate the beams that lower or raise or lower the assemblies (very similar to JD). When they engage the ground the beam can continue to rotate and pressurize spring on the unit. The machine is setup with row spacing of 17cm but this can easily doubled to 34cm or even 51cm by sliding an slide in the cup of the non required rows. The disc will still in contact with soil but not sowing. One negative is that there is currently no seed firmer, either the wheel or wand.

Combine with Towing Wheels in Place

Another option feature is the end towing capacity. The combine is pulled by a 3PL hitch with the combine being pulled in a east west positon. When wanting to transport the drawbar comes apart with the aid of a ram and rotates the seeder north south. The jockey wheels are then lowered and the 3PL is raised.

Semeato in Action

It was very interesting to see them manufactured and to talk with the do the work such as the engineers who have a 12 metre (40 ft) toolbar with a 15000 litre air seeder on the drawing board. After the company is happy with this model they are planning to work on 6, 9 & 15m models. It will interesting to see how they pan out.

Tiago took Nikki and I out to the Grill House for an authentic Brazilian barbeque lunch. All the different meats cooked on coals with rotisseries skewers. Nikki loved the pork ribs and my favourite was the brisket which tender, juicy and full of flavour like slow roasted lamb shanks. Nikki would not try the chicken, but they were the hearts so that’s not too bad.

Flying And Driving

View Out of Plane Window

We had long flight from Vancouver to Brazil via Mexico City. It took us 15hours flying but with a 3 hour stopover in Mexico. It was a long day in fact it carried over into the following day. We landed in Sao Paulo (Saint Paul) and picked up the car from the airport and headed south. We drove for 4 hours of which 1 ½ hour was taken up going around and around Sao Paulo. They have a lot of new roads and “Ken” the Tom Tom pilot didn’t have a clue where to go, we even went through the same toll booth twice in one direction and were on the other side of the road coming back. Before stopped later that day we went through at least 10 toll booths. I think we were paying for the road upgrade before completion, not after completion. To put it blunt the road was ratshit!! So we have paid for that section of the road and probably should be renamed “Nuffield Avenue”.

Some Quality Road Repair

On the second day of the drive which took us a total of 14 hours drive we made it to Passo Fundo in the southern state of Rio Grande Do Sul.

Components For My Ideal Seeder

I feel I am getting a good grasp on the design of good disc assemblies. It will need to have:

1. A double offset disc of two differing sizes.
2. Have a small seed firmer wheel.
3. The depth gauge needs to be independent of press wheel ( put on front discs).The depth wheel needs to hold the soil in place as the blade pulls from the soil.
4. Furrow closer e.g. Star or cast wheel.
In addition to this, Dwayne Beck given some comments regarding the assembly attachment style:
A. The JD and similar have radial attachment which means the angle of attack is correct for only one spot in its travel.
B. The parallel (or parallelogram) linkage has the proper angle of attack as long as the frame of the implement is parallel to the soil surface (very level fields).
C. The walking beam attachment has the proper angle of attack at almost all times.

A Couple More Seeders from North America

The Great Plains seeders have been around for a long time. They are sturdy machine and have in the past created a fair amount of disturbance, particularly with coulter attached. For someone still looking to incorporate pre-sowing herbicides like Trifluralin, these would be okay. There are a few already in Australia and have a lot of maintenance.

In Transport Position

Double Disc (Not Offset) & Seed Firmer With Large Presswheel

Whilst driving with Dwayne through South Dakota, we went past a Tor-Master, after reversing we had a good look over the machine. It was a paired row single disc assembly. The size of the disc was close to 500 mls and was relatively thick. All of the frame was good quality and well engineered. Dwayne stated that they worked well and had good penetration.

The Tor-Master Lying Next to Road

Looking From AbovePair Row Assembvly With Depth Wheel And Seed Tubes

Disc with Depth Wheel and Presswheels

and

Where was the Machine Made ?

In the State That Told Me Disc Do Not Work North Of Border