Field Slope Effects on Uniformity of Corn Seed Spacing for Three Precision Planter Metering Systems

The effects of field slope on planter seed spacing uniformity were evaluated for three different seed metering units (cell plate, finger pick-up, and flat plate) operating with medium round corn seed in a laboratory using the University of Nebraska planter test stand with an opto-electronic seed spacing sensor system. The metering units included a John Deere MaxEmerge Plus VacuMeter row unit with the standard cell corn plate, a John Deere MaxEmerge Plus VacuMeter row unit with the flat plate, and a John Deere MaxEmerge Plus row unit with the finger pick-up metering system. Planter seed spacing uniformity was measured using three parameters: ISO Miss index, ISO Multiples index, and Coefficient of Precision (CP3). Six replications for nine field slope treatments were conducted for each metering unit. The field slope treatments included: front-up (front of planter unit), front-down, right-up (right side of planter unit), and left-up each at field slope levels of 10% and 20%, and level.