Farming: a planter makes farming easy

By Stella Naigino

Bernard Mukasa has simplified work on his farm by purchasing a planter which has greatly improved on his farm work.

He says a planter is an agricultural farm implement towed behind a tractor, used for sowing crops through a field.

It is connected to the tractor with a draw-bar, to lay the seeds down in precise manner along rows.

“Seeds are distributed through devices called row units which are spaced evenly along the planter,” Mukasa notes.

He adds that planters vary greatly in size, from 2 rows to 48, with the biggest in the world being the 48-row. The space between the rows also varies greatly.

While being used, a mark is drawn on the side half width of the planter to create a line in the field where the tractor should be centered for the next pass.

The marker is usually a single disc harrow disc on a rod on each side of the planter.

Planters commonly have seed bins for each row and fertilizer bins for two or more rows.

In each seed bin plates are installed with a certain number of teeth and tooth spacing according to the type of seed to be sown and the rate at which the seeds are to be sown.

 The tooth size (actually the size of the space between the teeth) is just big enough to allow one seed in at a time but not big enough for two.

Modern planters often have a large bin for seeds that are distributed to each row.