"I've always wondered why Deere designed the furrow openers on their Max-Emerge planters with an opening at the front. When we decided to go to ridge planting, we knew we'd have to close that gap," says Phil Troester, Hampton, Neb.

"We first mounted an 8-in. wide regular cultivator sweep in front of the double discs by welding it to a 3/4-in. thick piece of 3-in. wide flat iron welded to the cast iron center of the openers. We bent the edges of the sweep up so it would run level with the ground and not dig in.

"After a year of operation like this, we welded pieces of flat iron onto the discs themselves to clear dirt off the center of the ridge. The rear back edge of the flat iron should be lower than the back edge of the sweep to clear away dirt and cut off any weeds that may have gotten a start. The openers now span about 16 in., leaving 14 in. between rows for trash to get through.

"We tried fluted coulters mounted in front of the openers the first year but trash plugged up between the coulters and the sweep. When we took them off, we found it worked just fine without them.

"This modification was basically all we had to do to plant on ridges, besides blocking our 3-pt. hitch solidly into place. We knew it was worth experimenting because these furrow openers are worthless as trade ins and we didn't want to spend the money to convert to ridge planting equipment. We're very satisfied with the results."