The RRV Canola Disk for John Deere Planters Designed for True Singulation & Longevity

Grain and oilseed growers in Western Canada often look down south at the amazing job that U.S. farmers do with planting the corn crop and wonder, “Should we be using a planter for our crops, too?”

While it’s absolutely possible to seed a great stand of canola and even soybeans without converting to a planter-based seeding system, those using planters for corn, soybeans or other crops are also having success with using the units for tiny-seeded crops like canola. Still, canola is a very Western Canadian crop, and as such, not all planter models have stock planting discs equipped to handle the hundreds of thousands of seeds required per acre

Related: What’s best for canola — a planter or seeder?

Neighbouring Manitoba farmers Kerry Cadieux and Jeff Calder were running into issues using sugar beets discs for planting canola. With only 45 holes per disc, achieving an ideal stand meant planting at a snail’s pace, and the teardrop pattern of the disc meant they weren’t achieving true singulation with the planter. The Letellier-area farmers decided to design and custom manufacturer their own disc for their John Deere planter, and after a year of using it on their own farms and testing it on two others, they’ve launched a new company to sell the disc.

In this interview, Calder and Cadieux run through the features of the RRV Canola Disk, the settings they’ve established that work best with the disc, plus they give an overview of the advantages they’ve found on their farm when planting vs. seeding canola.

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