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Grass Drills Adapted For Skid Steers
“The drill I bought to seed prairie grass nearly 50 years ago was a hunk of junk, with spiral telescoping seed tubes that I had to unplug every few feet with a clothes hanger,” says Jim Truax. “I put that bad experience behind me and designed a drill that did what I needed, and I’ve been building Truax seeding equipment ever since.”
Most Truax drills now have a tongue or 3-pt. hitch mount, but special customer requests have him building equipment that works on skid steers.
“I built the first skid steer model for a contractor in Salt Lake City who was seeding the banks of an extremely rough and irregular canal built to drain overflow from the Great Salt Lake,” Truax says. “That model had caster wheels to keep the drill running level, because his skid steer didn’t have self-leveling lift arms. Later we built drills for customers with a self-leveling loader, learning there are critical locations for lifting points on the drill and how it relates to the skid steer,” he adds.
Truax skid steer-mounted drills are now used by pipeline contractors, solar and windmill installers, road contractors, maintenance companies, vineyards, orchards and pollinator habitat developers. Most skid steer customers use the Truax end wheel models from the Flex Drill Series, which has a special frame to handle twisting exerted by the weight of the drill hanging in front of the skid steer. Models that seed 4 ft., 5.3 ft. or 8 ft. are the most popular, although Truax says a Texas customer mounted a 10.5-ft. wide drill on a large Deere tractor with a skid plate.
Truax says “another advantage of the Flex Series skid steer configuration is versatility. A drill can be converted to a tongue style, or to a 3-pt. version, by installing pins in the tongue bolt holes.” Truax Flex Drills are available as 2 or 3-box grass drills or 2-box grain drills, setups that let a single implement plant turf grasses, wildflowers, forbs, native grasses, legumes or cover crops.
The Truax Utility Series, which doesn’t have end wheels, also works on skid steers. “The implement width is 3 ft. less than a wheeled model, which is great for working in tight and restricted areas such as solar installations or vineyards,” Truax says. “This model can’t be converted to a tongue-style drill.”
Truax sells and services his equipment direct to customers.“We’ve been successful with this approach from the beginning and have satisfied customers in 49 states and many foreign countries,” he adds.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Truax Company, 4300 Quebec Ave. No., New Hope, Minn. 55428 (ph 763 537-6639; www.truaxcomp.com).


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2021 - Volume #45, Issue #3