Top tips from Moree agronomist

Mr Cogan has been impressed with what he has seen of the RFM Auspoint coil gauge and closing wheels.

The RFM Auspoint gauge and closing wheels are available in two or three coils, depending on the footprint required, and are designed to squeeze together around the seed rather than pack it down from the top.

Pressing all the air out of the ground around the seed, they enable good soil-to-seed contact, allowing the seed to have an easy establishment.

The squeezing action of the coils allows it to self-clean of mud and trash and, most importantly, not pick up seed and close the furrow off, for better seed to soil contact.

The system is gaining considerable favour amongst farmers in Queensland and northern New South Wales.

“You can see that you can potentially plant a little faster without compromising the planting operation,” Mr Cogan said.

“They certainly make a difference, and are better than the standard press wheels.

“At planting, you need the difference – it’s very important to achieve a satisfactory even plant germination and population. 

“I can see a higher percentage of seeds germinating, which may ultimately mean the planting rate could be lowered, this maybe a substantial cost saving and that is beneficial because seed is an expensive component of the whole operation.

“Planting cotton or sorghum into standing stubble can be very difficult, if you can achieve a higher emergence rate, it’s a real positive. This is also the case when planting into very light stubble or none at all, where soil moisture maybe marginal.

“I would suggest to farmers that they should trial or seriously consider a change to coil closing or gauge wheels if they are looking to upgrade their equipment.

“It really depends on whether they want to take it on board.”

Glenn Rogan, St George, Queensland, grows cotton on around 3,000 hectares of brown self-mulching clay soils, under irrigation from Beardmore dam in a “paddock to fabric” operation.

He has been using RFM Auspoint coil gauge wheels and closing wheels on a John Deere MaxEmerge XP planter which he has run for 12 years.

“We always had the original equipment gauge and closing wheels,” Mr Rogan said.

“But we had specific compaction problems with the closing wheels which compromised emergence of the plant in certain conditions – about 30 per cent of the time.”

Mr Rogan said that the main issue was with closure; the moist soils would build up on the rubber gauge wheels and about two years ago he heard about the RFM coil wheels.

“I had looked at lots of different configurations and thought – this is going to work,” he said. 

“Once we did a comparative trial with a couple of coil wheels we decided to go with coil gauge and closing wheels across the lot.”

He has now used the RFM Auspoint equipment on all eight rows of the planter for one season, in 700 hectares planted in mid-October last year. 

“We planted dry and watered up,” he said.

“Now I can confidently go into a paddock, knowing that the wheels won’t block up.”

Because the gauge wheel is self-cleaning, it overcomes the wet and dry layers of soil build-up.

“We believe that between seed planting and emergence, we would normally lose around 20 per cent, so we can now recoup the investment on these coil wheels,” he said.

“The planter runs smoother with coil gauge wheels than rubber wheels, because it breaks up the clods instead of riding over them, and that gives more accurate seed placement.

“Plus, we are now sowing faster – at 10.5 kph instead of 9 kph. An unintended bonus is that we use liquid inject and it is easy to see the nozzles now through the coils.

“This has made a good planter an even better planter.”

RFM Ag claims that there is less risk of smearing and that the wheel leaves a firm tilth without caking the surface.

It eliminates splitting or deteriorating rubber and can be angled for chemical incorporation in the row.