First No-Till Planter

First No-Till Planter PLANTING EQUIPMENT No-Till & Min-Till 16-6-19 It took 40 years or so but no-till planters are finally catching on. The world's first commercial no-till planter, however, was not a big success when it was introduced in 1953. Developed over 10 years by engineers at Purdue University, only about 50 of the International Harvester M-21 no-till planters were built at IH's Richmond, Ind., manufacturing plant from 1953 to 1955. Weed control was the biggest problem since the farm chemical industry was still in its infancy, says Donald D. Rhine, Purdue ag engineer who has researched the history of the planter, one of which is owned by Purdue University. Rhine says Purdue researchers started working on a no-till planter back in 1944. Later, one of the Purdue engineers working on the planter joined International Harvester and took the University's ideas to the company, patenting the no-till planter in the late 1940's. That was the machine IH began manufacturing in 1953. The planter was designed to fit a Farmall tractor, with cutting discs in the front, underneath the middle and with planting units on back. A pair of coulters up front were designed to cut through residue. They're followed by V-blades that place fertilizer into the seedbed. Fertilizer boxes mount above the V-blades. A pair of rotary hoe-type wheels follow behind the front V-blades to work up the seedbed. Seed boxes mount behind the tractor over V-blade furrow openers. Blades behind the tractor cover the seeds and press wheels trail behind. Rhine says many of the principles used on that original planter are still used on no-till planters today. He says the planter was used successfully by many researchers and some farmers and that it would probably have caught on if weed control had been available. The planter currently owned by Purdue was purchased in 1954 by a farmer in Scottsburg, Ind., and was later given to a Purdue ag economist who donated it to the University.

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