When Kincardine Agri-Farms of Kincardine, Ont., switched to no-till last year, they decided to save money and gain planting flexibility by assembling their own corn and soy-bean planter by using components from various manufacturers.

Kincardine puts in more than 8,000 acres of corn and beans each year and need some-thing fast, reliable, and durable. The resulting "Cadillac of no-till planters" cost a lot of money. It can plant 12 rows of 30-in. corn or 23 rows of 15-in. beans. It's equipped with a Till-Tech coulter caddy with Till-Tech coulters on front followed by White planter row units mounted on an Orthman folding stacker bar that allows the planter to be folded to a 6-row width. A pair of Val-Mar dry fertilizer boxes and air blowers mount on top of the rig. The boxes can be used to apply fertilizer alongside the row while planting corn, or to hold seed when planting soybeans. The pull-type rig is supported by two lift assist wheels on back. The planter was built for Kincardine by Till-Tech Systems, a planter manufacturer based in St. Thomas, Ont.

"The combination of a coulter caddy and toolbar planter provides a lot more flexibility in how you can use the fertilizer and planting equipment," says Ron Prong of Till-Tech. "This system works great for planting in narrow rows because the row spacing is easy to change. With a conventional planter you normally have to decide when buying whether you a want 30 or 20-in. row planter because row spacing is difficult to change."

Till-Tech stripped an 8-row White planter down to the frame and mounted the row units on a modified Orthman stacker bar, which folds from 30 to 16 ft. in both the 12-row, 30-in. row corn setup and the 23-row, 15-in. row soybean setup. The unit has a transport width of 21 ft. The stacker bar is attached to a 3-pt. hitch on back of the caddy. A pair of Valmar dry fertilizer boxes mount on top of the stacker bar and are filled by a cross auger mounted above them. A pair of blowers are used to deliver fertilizer to the tillage coulters and seed to the row units.

"The Valmar boxes each hold about 3,000 lbs. of fertilizer which is placed two to three inches to each side of the seed," says Prong. "The boxes can also hold three tons of soy-bean seed, allowing Kincardine to plant 70 to 80 acres before they have to refill. The coulter caddy uses three wavy coulters to loosen the ground in front of each corn row and two in front of each soybean row. Last fall Kincardine used the coulter caddy and fertilizer boxes to band fertilizer. They'll plant corn between the bands this spring. And this fall they plan to use the caddy and boxes to seed winter wheat in 7-in. rows. They'll mount 52 planting units on another toolbar that will be pulled behind the caddy.

"Another advantage is that the planter is equipped with Accu-Plant hydraulic controls which make it compatible with Global Positioning Satellite technology. It allows variable application rates for both seed and fertilizer.

"The planter requires five remote hydraulic outlets -- one to raise or lower the coulter caddy, one to fold the planter toolbar, one to raise the planter itself, one to operate the blower that delivers fertilizer, and one to operate the blower that delivers seed. We use flow control valves to raise or lower the planter wings and to operate the cross auger.

"We used the same idea to help another farmer who had a double frame New Idea planter and wanted 20-in. rows. We installed a coulter caddy on front and added fertilizer boxes, blower systems, and extra row units between the existing ones. However, the extra weight overloaded the planter frame and tongue so he had to add lift wheels on back." Because of the extra weight of its new planter, Kincardine had to trade for a Deere 8400 235-hp MFWD tractor.