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picked up this Allis Chalmers planter
Tractors, ATVs, & Attachments
Messages posted to thread:
evilarrows of famine 21-May-17
evilarrows of famine 21-May-17
evilarrows of famine 21-May-17
t-roy 21-May-17
evilarrows of famine 21-May-17
drycreek 21-May-17
Grubby 22-May-17
SouthernILbowhunter 22-May-17
lewis 22-May-17
Michael Schwister 22-May-17
evilarrows of famine 22-May-17
Grubby 22-May-17
Michael Schwister 22-May-17
t-roy 22-May-17
chasin wtails 22-May-17
krieger 22-May-17
DoeSlayer 31-May-17
evilarrows of famine 05-Jun-17
t-roy 05-Jun-17
Michael Schwister 06-Jun-17
evilarrows of famine 06-Jun-17
Michael Schwister 07-Jun-17
Michael Schwister 17-May-18
RIT 17-May-18
loprofile 17-May-18


Date:21-May-17
evilarrows of famine's Supporting Link

Hey guys, I've never farmed an I'm very new to food plots. I picked up this planter in hopes for improving late season bowhunting at my hunting spot. I'd like to use it for corn and soybeans, starting at small (1/3 - 1/2 acre) plots, maybe push an acre if I can swing it. I'll probably have a ton of questions but for now I'd like to cover the planter itself.

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Date:21-May-17

Date:21-May-17
evilarrows of famine's Supporting Link

sorry, been awhile since I used this format. having some picture issues - unecessarry posts can be deleted

Anyways, looking for some input.

Should I convert this to 3 point hitch? Make 2 two row planters & sell one? Make a 3 row and keep the other for parts? Would this work as is for no-till or would I need to add row cleaners?

I'll be pulling this with my dad's JD 4020, I see no need to by my own tractor at this point. Most of the ground is old strip mine ground that will probably need some soil building. I'm in the market for a used disc now but wondering if I can get by this year borrowing or without one.

This is my situation now and some random info. I'll post more questions as I think of them and give more details if I left them out. I guess this is just to get the ball rolling. I feel a little overwhelmed jumping in but gotta start somewhere!

By: t-roy
Date:21-May-17

Your links aren't coming up for me. One word of caution. Get out while you still can! Food plots are like crack, probably even more addictive;-)

Looks like your planter is in good shape. What questions do you have? I don't know much about Allis-Chalmers, but will try and help if I can. 30" rows? Small food plots in isolated areas can be awesome spots, but can be very difficult to get to maturity unless you can keep the deer out of them till they are done growing. There are several threads on here about electric food plot fences. Lots of great info there. I'll just say they definitely work.

Date:21-May-17

Yes t-roy, it's set up for 30" rows now but I believe they can be adjusted. The links were attempts at posting pics, they can be disregarded. I posted some questions in my last post, they should be there now.

Date:21-May-17

Right on t-roy, and I have it bad ! Sorry Evil, but I know nothing about planters, I do all mine with disc, seeder, and drag. Good luck in your endeavors !

By: Grubby
Date:22-May-17

I think you can probably get parts for that from agsco but they will be expensive! If it were mine I'd build a 3 point tool bar you can put all 4 on and later you can take one or 2 off. Nice planter! I love allis chalmers!

Date:22-May-17

Looks like you have a nice planter there. I farm so please email me if I can help you in any way. If it was me, I would leave it just like it is. 30" is real common for corn. You can either move row units in closer for soybeans or, just double plant,to make 15" rows. The closer the rows, the quicker the canopy to shade out weeds. Those allis planters have a "no-till" coulter on them, but with the closing wheel on that...more suitable for discing. I wouldn't worry about row cleaners for a food plot, as they can be quite expensive, even for used ones. With your strip mine ground Id spend that money on fertility and lime. If the ground isn't too hard now, you can get by without a disc, just spray your plot with roundup to burn down weeds, then plant with a "round-up" tolerant seed, and spray round-up, or the generic glyphosate over the top after new weeds have emerged. Tons of stuff we can talk about plots, but feel free to email me if you have anymore questions. Good luck and congrats on your planter!

By: lewis
Date:22-May-17

X2 Southernbh good luck Lewis

Date:22-May-17

Nice looking used no-till planter. Yes it is no-till, those wavvy blades are called "coulters" and till the soil in the seed channel (if they are aligned correctly) Did you get several set of Plates? Plates are a disk shaped piece of plastic or metal that rotate on the bottom of the seed bins and pick up the seed and make spacing correct for planned population. Different plates for different size and type seed. Plates can be bought on the auction site in sets, also recommend you pick up a manual while you are there, they are generally under $20. This is a very common planter used for generations (my cousin had one of these for his full time farm for 20 years). I would leave it four row, get a sprayer for your atv, and a cyclone fertilizer spreader for your tractor. You may also find some fertizler units and openers and add them, saving another step and allowing some 2x2 side application of fertilizer.

Date:22-May-17

I came with a set of metal corn plates & been plates (the corn plates are installed). It also came with some various plastic plates, what I believe are JD plates and adapters? The corn and bean plates were labeled but the plastic ones aren't. Here's a pic of the extras that came with it.

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I've seen manuals on ebay but not sure which one to get. I know it's an Allis Chalmers 600 but have read there were a lot of variations?

By: Grubby
Date:22-May-17
Grubby's Supporting Link

check out this site. Lots of allis specific info! While there probably was a bunch of variations I would guess that the row units were the same or similar.

Date:22-May-17

The orange metal pieces on the left are gears to change the speed of the plates Ground driven by packer wheel, thus increasing or decreasing planting population. I think the silver pieces are used for certain seeds under the plates, but do not know(or they are adapters for other brand plates. That is why a manual is handy. Seed bags used to have plate recommendations on the bag, now you will need the manual. As long as it plants seed evenly, you should be good enough for plots. Put the seed in, see if they fit through the plates, and drop the planter on the driveway slowly and easily, and go several feet then lift the planter. Stop and count seeds per foot and make sure there are no skips. Also make sure the fluted coulters are set correct track and depth to allow the seeds to be planted (at least 1 1/2", but manual will address correct adjustment. Lots of folks use this planter for both plots and small farms, so maybe someone with expereince with this planter will chime in

By: t-roy
Date:22-May-17

Like suggested above, I'd leave it set for 30" rows unless your Dad's tractor tires are set to something different. Those can also be moved in or out as well, maybe even easier than MacGyvering the planter widths. The silver plates are your bean plates I believe. The brighter yellow plastic plates are corn plates (flats) and the cream colored plastic plates are also corn plates (rounds). The rounds or the flats to be used, are designated by your seed corn shape, which can vary quite a bit from one variety to the next. The bright yellow plates possibly could be bean plates. It kinda hard to tell in your pic. The farmers used to have lots of different plates and like Michael S stated, the proper planter plate numbers to be used were printed on the bag. The seed companies used to give you the plates years ago. Lots of times you can find plates for sale on Craig'slist or eBay, or at farm auctions. I have an old IH planter and I've got about 3 five gallon buckets full of different plates for it. Unfortunately they won't work in your planter.

SouthernILbowhunter & Michael S both seem to be way more familiar with this planter than I am, and can give you more good info than I can. Lots of great sources of info here on Bowsite!

Date:22-May-17

chasin wtails's MOBILE embedded Photo

chasin wtails's Supporting Link

I have now have a 3 row I repainted this winter. It used to be a 6 row that a friend cut down. When I had my Massey Ferguson 50 he made me a 2 row. He had a row left over, after making another guy a 3 row, so when I got my Farmall 560 last year I added it to the others and remounted on a piece of tubing.

I have mine set this year at 26 inches to fit between my tires. Going all corn this year. If you plan on using the John Deere plates don't lose those adapters in the lower right hand corner of your picture.

Lincoln Ag Products have a lot of plates and you can send them your corn and soybean seed and they will match it up to a specific plate if you want to get that technical.

I see you are from IL also. When I got my 3rd row I had a problem finding the adapter and contacted this guy in S. IL. He got me an adapter and most of the other plates I already had for my other 2 rows so I'm good to go with whatever plates I decide to use.

http://www.foodplotplanters.com/

Date:22-May-17

Nice refurb chasin!! Beautiful job.

Date:31-May-17

I'm pretty sure that is a 70 series planter, probably on a 600 frame. If you look on ebay for a manual look for "70 series planting units". It covers the 70-75 planter units and the main difference is the hoppers and what kind of opener they have. I have a 2 row i saved from an 8 row i bought and sold 2 - 3 row planters. As someone else already said the gears are sprockets and you have to change them to change your population. You have some seed plates and the yellow ones with 5 holes in the center is a converter plate that lets it use the John Deere 71 plates. You can get new ones from Lincoln Ag but you will find them a lot cheaper on ebay. If i had a tractor that big i would leave it just like it is, it will be a lot easier to hook up to than going 3 point unless you have a quick hitch.

Date:05-Jun-17

Well we gave it a shot this weekend, without much success. We sprayed a plot last weekend and went to put beans in but the coulters weren't digging into the ground, it pretty much laid the seeds on the surface. Being a small plot we didn't have much of a chance to drive in straight lines, therefore the front coulters would swivel and not line up with the seed placement. Next we attempted to run in straight lines, cross hatching back and forth across the plot. As you can imagine this wasn't very efficient - raise planter, back up, lower planter, drive, raise planter, turn around, back up... repeat. This helped, but the 2 middle rows still weren't digging into the ground. We thought they must be too high so we lowered those 2 coulters. That didn't help due to the fact they are meant to absorb blows from rocks, so they just raised up when the weight of the planter was put down.

We finally came to the conclusion that the ground is just too hard.The next plan is to get a disc or something to loosen up the dirt first. I just ordered a couple manuals but I thought I'd throw this info out here in case I'm missing something obvious. I'm sure it's hard to tell without being there and I wish I would've taken a video but I didn't. All I have is a couple pics of the plot before we sprayed last weekend.

 photo IMG_20170528_151247.jpg  photo IMG_20170528_151250.jpg

By: t-roy
Date:05-Jun-17

Quite the thistle patch! Better get rid of those babies!

Definitely looks like you need to work the ground up before you try to plant.

Date:06-Jun-17

As that planter is currently setup you do not have enough weight to penetrate hard soils. Most of the ones I see have two large dry fertilizer boxes, AND 2-3 55 gallon drums filled with water to create enough down force. Also, those coulters look worn and thus may be smaller than when original (manual should describe). But they can be adjusted. With the 600 frame setup you do need to drive fairly straight given the distance from openers. To loosen soil a chisel plow would work best, unless you have a very heavy duty (30" plus notched blades, and 15hp per foot required dbhp)a disc will not work well either. Going forward, when the beens leaves turn brown in the fall, go in and broadcast rye/winter wheat into the standing beans, and it will both provide an excellent "beans and Greens" shooter and feed plot, AND in the spring burn it down with gly, wait 2 weeks, and soil will be mellow and planting will go much easier (and better weed control).

Date:06-Jun-17

Michael, thank you for the detailed reply! I did wonder if we needed more weight on the frame, but in my mind the coulters would just swivel up more? Unless we put enough weight on to bottom them out but then there would be no room for rebound? I guess more weight would help the seed disc openers dig in further. Either way, I'll check condition of coulters when the manual comes in. I think we will see how this plot turns out and broadcast in the fall like you suggested. Moving forward, I'm going to borrow my uncle's chisel plow as we have a couple more plots we'd like to get in.

Date:07-Jun-17

Just google allis chalmers 600 planter pictures and you will see setups with both the dry and liquid fertilizer tanks, and weighted barrels. As I wrote above, given the long distance between the fluted coulters and the seed openers on this planter, the planter is designed to plant straight rows, not tight turns. With enough weight, it will penetrate and plant in any soil that will grow ag crops. Growing up, our corn planter was a conventional 4 row JD 494A planter, and we initially used a oliver 66 (30 hp ish) to plant with (later a 770 diesel). A no till planter requires a larger tractor primarily because of the increased weight to both lift with hydraulics, and to hold back on hills. With a JD 4020 you can add a ton to the front of that planter over the coulters, and if they are correctly adjusted it should plant without primary tillage (straight rows). Kill those thistles, and it may take more full rate roundup at this stage

Date:17-May-18

I borrowed an identical planter from my neighbor to plant corn this spring. I used my M6040 Kubota which handled it easily. No addition weight and it dang near sunk to china (slight exaggereation for affect). COrn is up and looks like a good stand. Plot was a burned down /worn out clover stand. I also did a no-till planter bean trial plot with the only bean plates he had, a clear spacer, and some of the seeds were too large and plugged the plates. My seed was Eagle gamekeeper, which has four different varieties included. Only the largest seed variety plugged up the works. I did not try it without the clear spacers, they may have been my problem. I called eagle and they said the B-SOY 3X plates were the correct ones for Eagle Gamekeeper. You can change the gearing to increase population. I did my main bean plots conventional tillage and grain drill followed by cultipacker. Have an excellent stand. Liked the Allis so much am looking to buy a 2 row 3pt hitch version with dry fertiser bin and openers up front for a 2x2 fertilizer application. I can spray, then two weeks later just plant. Two passes only

By: RIT
Date:17-May-18

RIT's embedded Photo

That’s a lot of effort for those small plots. You may consider forgoing the corn and beans until you improve your soil.

If that were me I would fertilize the area now and let it grow up all summer. Then I would come back in late August to spray the plot. Then broadcast winter rye, Oats, crimson clover, and tillage radish into the standing vegetation. Mow the vegetation down over top of the seed and in a few weeks you will have a carpet of green food for the deer to hit.

Date:17-May-18

Great looking planter - nothing looks cooler than rows, regardless of whether corn or beans. I do think that you will have to till the plots first though for best results.


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