User guide

SEEDHAWK®30SERIESOPERATOR’SMANUAL93
4.30 CROPRESIDUECONSIDERATIONS
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Seeding into fields with heavy residue is challenging, but residue cover is essential to the
successof azero‐till croppingsystem. Ideally,the strawheight from thepreviousyearwillbe
lessthanorequaltothewidthoftheSeedHawk
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Drillrowspacing.
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Foroptimumresults,thecombineshouldchopthestrawandspreadthestrawandchaffevenly
acrosstheentireswathwidth.Thefertilizerandseed kniveswillcatchanddragsmallamounts
of crop residue whileseeding.Somesmall clumpsof strawmay be depositedalong theseed
rowmakingthefinishedseedbedappearrough.
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IMPORTANT:Avoid harrowing after seeding with the Seed Hawk Drill.Harrowing after
seeding can drasticallyalter seed depth.Althoughtemptingtoharrowto smoothoutstraw
clumps,theseclumpswillsmoothoutovertimeandexposuretotheweather.
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Increased humidity will reduce the ease with which the straw will flow around the knives.
Increasedhumiditynearthesoilsurfaceismorecommon
duringthefirstfewyearsofzero‐
till.This isdue to lower soil porosity and infiltrationrates. With time,the soil porosity and
infiltrationrateswillrise,andthehumiditywilldecrease.
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