Our picture of the Great Plains no-till drill we have is not to promote Great Plains as the best no-till drill to buy. In fact it is not. At the time we looked for a compact no-till drill for use on rough ground small fields it was the best on the market. Since then better small no-till drills have been developed by other manufactures. These manufactures recognize that hunters have dollars to spend, they have land and they have small tractors. Further Great Plains post purchase customer service is abysmal. The drill shown above was delivered defective do to the dealership transporting the drill with the drive wheel engaged at highway speeds. That cased the drive chain and gears to migrate on their spindles and impact against the housing. The damage was immediately noticeable at delivery, notation made on the sales receipt and signed by the dealership representative. The dealership took no action to resolve the damage. Emails and telephone calls to the dealership and to the Great Plains manufacturing office in Kansas further did not resolve the damage and in all cases the buyer requests for repairs and warranty enforcement failed. The damage was repaired at cost and time of the buyer at not follow-up compensation or effort from Great Plains. Are the above comments venting complaints, no. We go back to the original propose of this habitat section. Our purpose is not as many magazine articles do in telling what should be done and promoting print advertiser products. We are telling and showing what we did and the results. This discussion on no-till drills is to insure the reader that is contemplating buying a no-till drill understands that Great Plains is not the only choice and not the best choice do to it having been our choice. There are consequences after purchase of a Great Plains drill and there are better no-till drills than Great Plains for parts of wildlife applications. Further failings of this drill is Great Plains offering options without decision criteria to support one choice over another. Case in point is that we bought the small seed box. For smaller clover such as White Clover, it is probably the only reason to use it, if we keep the large press wheel. Clover seed germinates very well when just scattered on the soil surface and broadcasting with a light weight chain drag performs as well or better that drilled clover. Dilled clover runs a greater risk of deep or too deep of planting with the seed planted too deep expending its energy before the germination stem breaks the soil surface to draw the sun's energy. Is the cost worth the price for clover planting? The answer is no. That may not be true every where and regional differences must be included within any buying decision. What would have been better would be incorporation of a drill mounted fertilizer system for grain and grass planting. An onboard fertilizer application system can place fertilizer right with the seed into the furrow where the desired plant can gain its full advantage. The value is the desired plant gets a boost to become more competitive against any infiltrating weed seeds or disturbance seed germination. Contrasted to a broadcast fertilizer application where any plant that happens to be where the fertilizer falls gains the value of that money spent. The grass box is useful as its agitation bar, seed cup pickups and seed tube do a good job at preventing blockage and allow for steady seed flow. The failing of the grass seed capability of the drill is the seed drops behind the double disk opener and not inside of the planting double disk opener it as does the regular seed or grain box. This is a point that other manufactures excel at beyond Great Plains with grass seed tubes that feed seed within the double disk opener. If this is unclear continue on as there are additional pictures to show this point.
Earlier we had touched on some of the hidden costs such as tire picture prevention using a liquid Kevlar injected into tires to block pictures less than 1/4 inch. Doing so cost money, however it allows us to get the job done as in our area the Honey Locust tree grows on sunny edges and drops these thorn quite capable of flattening any tire without additional protection. The picture immediately above is of a thorn penetrating the tire. The picture below is the same and shows well the thorns.
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