When Bill Lehmkuhl started doing planter clinics in 1994, he says most growers spent more time managing their harvesting equipment than their planter. Growing up on the farm, Lehmkuhl’s late father commented he spent more time off the tractor while planting than in the tractor.

But Lehmkuhl knows this: by the time no-tillers are fussing over their combine, it’s too late to recover yield from poorly planted crops. 

“The sins of planting will haunt you all season long. The planter pass is sacred,” says the Precision Agri-Services consultant from Minster, Ohio, who’s put on clinics and done consulting work in 21 states and across Canada. “You’ve got to dig in the ground. You’ve got to pay attention.”

Surrounding the Seed

No-tillers need to think of planting in terms of the microenvironment they are setting up around the seed and how the planter performs within that environment. 

“You still need to get your butt out of that tractor seat. I don’t care what that monitor shows you. You need to get out and dig across the entire width of where the gauge wheels run to see what that planter is doing as far as down force and other types of things,” he says. “Take an air tank or leaf blower out to the field and blow out about 10 feet of row and you can really see what’s going on within the sidewalls and that microenvironment of that field. I suggest doing this right behind the planter pass to check for…