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Adding liquid fertilizer to planter

BlueSpruceOutfitters

BlueSpruceOutfitters

Junior Member
941
71
Valley City, Medina Co. OH
Hey guys! I have a John Deere 246/247 Two Row Corn Planter than I'm rehabbing for use this food plot planting season. Other than some surface rust, it's in great shape. The fertilizer boxes have lol since rusted off and the whole assembly is gone. I'm pretty handy so I was wondering if anyone can give me some ideas of how I can add a small (less than 20 gallon probably) liquid fertilizer tank and sprayers to this old workhorse. If anyone knows where I can find the materials as well, I'm not on a super tight budget but would prefer not to spent more than I bought the planter for. Lol.
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It’s probably not going to work out for you. Those models are based on ground speed and you won’t be able to vary the pumps based upon that at this point. You really want to Inject into the ground at the seed. On the back of the shoe on your planter you should have a hole for a drop tube. See if that is still there and maybe you can rig up a granular fertilizer hopper of some sorts. With a high nitrogen fertilizer you need to be careful that you do t put too much or the weeds will get away from you and the corn won’t get any.
 
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Milo said:
It’s probably not going to work out for you. Those models are based on ground speed and you won’t be able to vary the pumps based upon that at this point. You really want to Inject into the ground at the seed. On the back of the shoe on your planter you should have a hole for a drop tube. See if that is still there and maybe you can rig up a granular fertilizer hopper of some sorts. With a high nitrogen fertilizer you need to be careful that you do t put too much or the weeds will get away from you and the corn won’t get any.
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Yeah. Still have the hole for the drop tube. Just none of the parts. All have since rusted away. At this point I'm probably just gonna spray/till/spray/till the field and then broadcast some 19-19-19 pre plant. Then hit it with some urea a few weeks in before a good rain. It's a hail Mary corn plot anyways. As long as I get some corn I'm fine with it. It's next to impossible to find any parts for the fertilizer stuff nowadays. Thanks for the insight!

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Save yourself the hassle and just broadcast the granular fertilizer. Your plots will probably not be big enough to warrant rehabbing that old planter and spending the time/money.
 
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You will find these planters will struggle in unprepped soil. Make sure you have a well prepped fields. Make sure you disk it up really well. Hard clay soils aren’t fun. I would suggest a cultipacker afterwards. I had two of these and we got spotty work out of them. The planting shoes can be worn too much causeing issue. Don’t be afraid to practice with it. 5 acres is a lot of corn to plant with a that planter. Your going to get a a lot of weeds because you have to broadcast so I would suggest you find a spray to combat weeds after the Corn Pops up.
 
Milo said:
You will find these planters will struggle in unprepped soil. Make sure you have a well prepped fields. Make sure you disk it up really well. Hard clay soils aren’t fun. I would suggest a cultipacker afterwards. I had two of these and we got spotty work out of them. The planting shoes can be worn too much causeing issue. Don’t be afraid to practice with it. 5 acres is a lot of corn to plant with a that planter. Your going to get a a lot of weeds because you have to broadcast so I would suggest you find a spray to combat weeds after the Corn Pops up.
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Milo nailed it as usual. Soil prep is absolutely critical with the old planters.
 
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