He Turned 24-Row Drill Into 28-Row Drill

He Turned 24-Row Drill Into 28-Row Drill DRILLS Drills (42C) 21-5-11 When Ross Lay decided he wanted a bigger drill than the 15-ft. no-till Deere he was using, he looked at a couple different options and decided neither was workable. "In our operation, a 20-ft. drill would have limited maneuverability in transport, plus we couldn't justify the expense," says the Litchfield, Ill., farmer. "There is a commercial kit available that adds two rows to each side, but you have to move disc openers around so spacings are 10 in. We wanted to retain 7 1/2-in. spacings." So Lay used 7 1/2-in. lengths of 4 in. sq. tubing to extend the frame the disc openers mount on, adding 2 1/2 ft. to the over-all width of the drill. He simply welded the tubing onto the existing frame, then welded plates onto the tubing so he could mount disc openers. Four new Deere disc openers were purchased for about $550 apiece. Lay simply pulled seed metering tubes out far enough to supply the new openers on the outer ends. He added metering tubes to sup-ply the openers on the inner parts of the ex-tensions. He had to move the seed rate adjustment lever to a spot on the side of the box to make room for the additional tubes. "We made the conversion a year ago last spring and it works great. We've got four more rows than we had before," he says. "And we can go anywhere we could before." Out-of-pocket expense was about $2,500. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Ross Lay, Route 16 East, Litchfield, Ill. 62056 (ph 217 532-3890).

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