Väderstad’s row unit shoots — not drops — seeds in the furrow

Have you ever wished you could shoot seeds into their rows, rather than drop them? Väderstad’s PowerShoot row-unit does just that. It shoots seeds into the ground through air pressure, with as much precision as if you were planting in the garden with your own hands.

RealAgriculture’s Shaun Haney caught up with Lars Thylen, of Väderstad, at Agritechnica in Hanover, Germany, to talk about the power shoot function.

“It’s a pressurized planter,” says Thylen in the video below. “If you look at the planter and open up the cover, you will feel air pressure.”

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One of the first questions that come up when looking at an implement like this is how do we prevent seed bounce, since the seed is put into the ground with downforce of about 30 mph.

“We shoot it under a stop wheel, and from there we stop it, and press it down into the soil,” says Thylen. “That’s what gives us the good germination.”

The widest PowerShoot available on the market currently is a 24-row unit model.

Check out the video below to learn more:

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