Comparative Performance of Four Planter Furrow Opener and Row Cleaner Arrangements in a Conservation Tillage Corn Production System

A study was conducted to compare the performance of four types of planter furrow opener and row cleaner arrangements at two crop residue levels on the amount of surface residues after planting, seeding depth, emergence rate index and seed spacing indices of corn in a soil covered with previous wheat residue. residue levels were baled out and non-b aled (untouched). corn was planted with a planter equipped with the following furrow openers and attachment arra ngements: double disc furrow opener preceded by a row cleaner (dr), chise l furrow opener preceded by a row cleaner (cr), winged chisel furrow opener preceded by a row c lea ner (wcr) and win ged chisel furrow opener without row cleaner (wc). results showed that wcr treatment at baled out residue level retained the least amount of residue on the seed row after planting. mea surements showed that residue level for all treatments were higher than the residue level required for establishing conservation tillage practices. an increase of eri up to 15% was obtained for this treatment as compared to cr and wc treatments. double disc furrow opener preceded by row cleaner treatment resulted in higher percentage of eri as compa red to cr and wc, pos sibly due to jess planting depth. the study showed increasing depth is more influenced by furrow opener shape than the amount of bed residue. the lowest miss index was obta ined for wcr treatment at baled out residue level which is desi rable.improve ment in quality of feed inde x was found to be 36% for wcr treatment when compared to planting with dr and wc treatm ents. furthermore, this treatment decreased the value of precision index up to 45% as compar ed to dr and wc treatments.