Vincennes, Ind. No-Till Living Legend Ray McCormick has a unique and efficient way of seeding cover crops with his draper and air seeder. Here’s the Conservation Ag Operator Fellow discussing some of the specs that make his setup so effective.

“This is our draper, a 35-foot wide John Deere Draper Platform, and this is our Gandy Air Seeder. This is one Gandy made to go on heads, so it’s electrically driven so these paddles here spit out the seed electrically so it’s always at the same rate, so it becomes a real rough spot to slow down and then it’ll put on more seed. But also, if it gets — if you start out cutting beans at 2.5 miles an hour and end up at 4 miles an hour you can slow it down or speed it up on the little wheel over there. And then right here is the venturis that picks up the seed. So, this is hydraulically driven by a blower that’s mounted up here. And so the seed runs out of here and it hits right here and splays it out in a perfect umbrella. So on this spacing, you have perfect umbrella seed. So, that’s one of the beauties of putting it on with the head — you get this stand that looks more like grass in your yard than rows of cover crop. So, your stand is always very uniform, which allows you to pull back, pull back and I’m doing it again this year — pulling back the seeding rate because it is so accurate at putting it on that it covers the ground completely.”

Be sure to grab a copy of the upcoming November edition of No-Till Farmer’s Conservation Tillage Guide where you can read lots more about McCormick’s equipment and his planting season as a whole.