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No-Till on Heavy Ground: What Actually Works at Hunco Farms | Crop Chats

• Ian Virtue • Season 2 • Episode 7

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No-Till on Heavy Ground: What Actually Works at Hunco Farms | Crop Chats


In this episode of Crop Chats, we head to Hunco Farms in Ontario to break down what it really takes to succeed with no-till planting on heavy, sometimes poorly drained ground.


Jason, Kevin, and Phil walk us through their planter setup, the upgrades they’ve made, and what they’ve learned the hard way about planting green, managing residue, and adapting to changing conditions. From hydraulic downforce to trash whippers and electric row shutoffs, this is a real-world look at what works—and what doesn’t—on tough soil.

You’ll hear:
✔ Why they chose a Kinze 3605 with specific add-ons
✔ The impact of planting green into cereal rye
✔ What planter features they’d skip if they could do it again
✔ Lessons from early no-till fears—and what changed their minds
✔ How section control and monitoring tech are shifting their approach
🔧 Gear Featured: Kinze 3605, N540 Air Seeder, Yetter, Exapta Mojo Wires, L'arie openers

🌱 Topics: no-till corn, soybean planting, planter upgrades, heavy ground strategies, trash management, field calibration, GPS use

📍 Filmed in Ontario, Canada
🎙️ Presented by the Ontario Soil Network
👨‍🌾 Real farmers. Real fields. No marketing fluff.

Crop Chats is a collaborative video and podcast series between the Ontario Soil Network and Ian McDonald (OMAFA). Watch the full video on YouTube or listen on your favourite podcast platform.

🌱 Watch the full series on YouTube: youtube.com/@SoilNetwork
🌾 Discover more from OMAFA: youtube.com/@ONfieldcrops/videos

Thanks for tuning in to the Soil Network Podcast!

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a fellow farmer or agri-curious friend. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a conversation about farming smarter, growing better, and building stronger communities.

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Let’s keep growing—together. See you next time!

2:

Hello and welcome to our seeding equipment series. What we're doing is going around the province, talking to different producers that have different planter equipment, have been buying or refurbishing equipment and talking about the thought process that you need to go through to make sure that you're making the right decisions, especially in light of how costly farm equipment is these days.

3:

Yeah, Jason, I've worked here for 25 years next year. Kevin, he's worked here for portion 40 years. Phil, he's worked here for a year now. Kevin's brother helps us with the grain buggy, and if we can find a guy to truck, we do. My son helped this spring, or sorry, in the summertime with wheat. Run it over. So we do get a little bit of extra. But most daily goings-on is the three.

2:

of us. Which one of the planters does what with the...

3:

Well, we have a 16 row, 3605 Kinsey.

2:

Brand new this past year? Yeah, this spring.

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hydraulic downforce on it, roll shut off, or two roll shut off. it. A lorry fertilizer, dry fertilizer openers on it, the heavy-duty ones, trash whippers, and we use the yetter. closing.

2:

and that is only planting corn. Yes. And then what plants the rest of the

3:

then we have a N540. Air cedar, central fill air cedar, 40 foot and it does. the core or the. the wheat and the corn.

2:

And is it also part of the fertilizer? application equipment. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Some guys are actually using their drills to manage getting their fertilizer in their no-till system into the ground as opposed to broadcasting it. Have you guys been using it in that manner?

3:

We still dry broadcast fertilizer on. The corn planter has dry fertilizer on it. So it's, and the... We don't put liquid down with the soybeans, but we do put...

2:

down with the week. Your business is a little different in that you work for another gentleman that owns the farm and it's not that active in it, but I imagine when you want to go and replace a piece of equipment, you have to sort of justify that to Don and have a good conversation. So what is the thought process here at Hunco that you guys use in determining when and what to replace a

1:

equipment with? Well, we just go to Don and ask him like, we have to replace all this on a war out planter like this corn planter for instance. We wanted to go to down pressure, hydraulic down pressure because we were just running springs and it needed to be completely rebuilt needed all new blades. A lot of stuff like. time to go with it.

2:

[BLANK_AUDIO]

1:

he wasn't really willing to spend that much money on an old planner, so that was the reason for him. new one because the to upgrade it too with too hydraulic down pressure and everything was good.

2:

of money. So can we talk about as you change the new equipment especially on planting side you use often go larger and so other pieces of the system that sort of feed that planter or that feed off that planter need to sort of adapt. So as you buy new equipment what are the other parts of the operation that you have to be thinking about and maybe even have to come? with the purchase. of that new piece of equipment. - Well, man power was a bit of it.

3:

You can get. crucial. You seem to have a very short window in the spring to get stuff done. And if we, with bigger equipment, you can get a lot more done in a hurry. Not a hurry, but you can day. We've kind of matched up our our two planners are both 40 feet with that RTK. plant between rows, having the match plan. helps a lot with that. The sprayer. 120 feet. matches that matches with those planters as well, like in the multiples. - How about the combine headers? They also match up with that 120 or with that, like they're pass wise, they average out, right? Okay. We talked about this in the in the no-till video but it's important to bring up here.

2:

you specking. planter for your no-till system that you think you would have to spec out for a conventional system or is there you know you got to spend more money you got to have a more robust planter what what do you feel about that yeah I think we wouldn't need near as much downforce or any of that if we were still working the ground but and I had this the drill

1:

think would be, it's too. work on work ground. I think. It's. would be just overkill.

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point from the no-till. is you're planting green and you say it just plants so nice. and yet you're saying that the no-till planter needs to be tougher but it almost sounds like a bit. Solar him with Galaxy more on So when you're planting that green planet, it works well. planter to go through it. It might not plan as well in. matter, trying to plan in.

1:

Optimum green? Well I think you want to set yourself up that you know you're going to get the seed in the ground. But if you were going to go and plant corn with just a standard corn planter you might get a lot more. versus... They're hard ground, yeah.

2:

And when you're planting green. you trying to get the fertilizer coulters and the openers below the thatch layers.

1:

the residue? Yes, we're trying to get the fertilizer below the wood.

2:

below the seed if we can. Yeah. I talk about the fact that, you know, the basic planter you need has got to have the must haves to make it work. And then we'll talk about the nice to have. So in terms of hunker. you guys are trying to accomplish and what are the must haves. as part of this new planter. hydraulic downforce was a huge thing. And have you seen a big change in this planter relative to the old planter in terms of that? Yeah, if you watch behind it, the rows stay. Where the other one, they seem to bounce. It's a lot of work.

1:

it in the ground far better for sure. Okay. Seed farmers and trash whippers, we have the Xapt springs

3:

Mojo wires, I think they're called so. Just to hold that seed firmer tight.

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so it doesn't bounce.

3:

Closing wheels are big. that trench, especially with that. that tight. Okay. Not tight, but like get it closed. Yep. And if you try different...

2:

and found the ones that... Operation?

1:

Our old planter, we had a curve of the blade, and we would use it to cut the end of the blade. that worked really good. like beans double but as soon as it got wet it didn't seem to... There was a rubber tire on one side and a curve. And we'll see you next time. two carbitides. the dealer and he handed us these two twisters and he said try them and so we put them on the metal. in 2019 when it was so wet and the middle two rows when we side dress corn that year were complete through all the hollows where some of the other spots hadn't filled in and we'd lost some population there but then two rows that had that corn.

2:

we're all there. And that so. So then if money was unlimited and you know you really liked gadgets or other pieces of kit as the Europeans or the UK guys would say, what would be? to have that you don't have but that you think is right.

3:

difference. if it was available. Yeah, this one has electric roll shutoffs to just as two rows at a time. Okay. Which is big where the other one was just half width. So there is the odd field, well not the odd, pretty well every field where you may drive from one end to the other where you only need two rows or. or you had to use half. Section control is big. have then Jason. I would say it's a must.

1:

Monitoring, I guess you can always have... it's nice to have good monitors. everything's working like a... soil scents or the moisture scents. That would be kind of neat, but it might be just something that scares you if you are planting through one little And if you didn't notice it, but it told you that. It's just something to scratch at the back of your brain at night. So, so then we're going to move into the walk around of the plan.

2:

drill and have a look at them. And so we'll get to that. Kevin are now going to walk us around their new Kinsey planter and talk about the different features and why they have made this choice relative to the no-till part of their system. They are no-till consumers. this planter fits in that. So go ahead guys. I guess we went to these L'Arie.

1:

openers because they they're good and tough and we get our. where we want to put it and... We had them on our previous planner and they worked.

2:

And why individual fertilizer boxes? Just to keep the weight spread out across the planters.

1:

Yeah, central fill stuff's nice, but then you... to go dry fertilizer. to the behind you.

3:

All of our corn is still bag corn too. on any pro boxes, so individual row units.

1:

We have the floating roll cleaners. Just, they seem to work for. Poland. On our previous planter, we went to the shark tooth blades and that really helped in the plant and green part. We find that... where we're planting into the rye. As long as that corn plant can't touch the rye, it doesn't seem to affect it any. if it's growing well. and the two, like the rice touching the corn, there is some hold back there.

2:

This is something a lot of people have been scared off of rye for, but you're finding that that's all it takes to make it work. Yeah, just keep that that role.

1:

It doesn't seem to have that toxicity or whatever... So a lot of it's just a nitrogen take up and the rye has... for the corn but there's still when that rye touches the corn. is a little bit of hold back at the start. 17, we planted a field at East O'Hare that was. Hood of the Tractor, the Riot. it was in head, the turnips had went in the head. want the flower. got five inches of rain that night. inches of rain, and it was wet to start with, so we couldn't get that rain. And that corn was at 2 leaf when we finally burned it off. And to this date,

2:

ever grow. Good grief, Mazy.

1:

it, but we're afraid to try that again.

2:

And these row cleaners, are they automatically adjustable? They're just floating. Yeah they just float. Can you talk about the tires both on the wings and the center? I guess there's no wings on the wheels? the tires in terms of compaction and weight carrying.

1:

Yeah, they're just a one. I don't know whether, maybe we should go to a VF tire or whatever.

3:

Thank you. options tire wise anyway. Sickle. He's done some stuff. >> I kitten-z planner. you the pressures I guess, but you don't, there's not a lot of room to make a wider tire. It is a frustration I have.

2:

manufacturers that they they engineer it so that there's not a lot of room to put more rubber. to the planters. And I think the Europeans have got something there that-- up on here in North America. Okay, so let's talk about the... units on this planter.

3:

this planner, this... the planner was just springs. yet or for closing. We run Keaton Seed for... we run the it's called a Mojo wire from Exapta we put them on the Keaton's to keep it tight in the trench. Mojo wire they call it. stiffens that. that down in the trench tight? It's hydraulic. for seeing. and has electric row shutoffs. out of time. for section control.

2:

whether it was single or double disc opener. double-desk openers. Yes. Any thought to going to the narrower ones at all? Not on this. We... for...

1:

Yeah. We, we've never had any problem with these ones. So yeah, the seed firmer, the Keaton seed... The first year we no-tilled corn on our own, we set up an old John Deere planter and... and anywhere. that we had a... were the they were a big help. We've been planting 2 1/2 inches the last few years since I'll go to these things and they're all talking the cob size and all that, even emergent, sorry. So we went to two and a half on everything. We have a field this year that was just, it's not tiled perfect. It's a piece of ranted ground. And when we get off where it's systematically tiled at that two and a half inch, our population isn't quite as good as it should be. And I. on some of the things that we've been doing. We should come back up. It's heavy ground and it's just, maybe.

2:

where the two and a half is working, is the emergence pretty uniform? Yes. So we're here talking about their-- Take it away.

3:

- Um... nice. few issues. on it... there.

1:

Yeah, a bigger tire would be definitely...

2:

How evenly is the weight distributed between front and back on this unit? I think based off like we weighed it there last year, I think you were.

3:

I think when it was full though. the front to back and the wings were Um, different. on the mainframe and the wings. They're walking beams. not the wings. But it's the wings.

1:

Bye.

3:

there. sits crooked so the tires. they look like they tip in. But when you're planning-- That, um... walking beam just flops. It just constant- And it doesn't matter whether you fill it full of water. or not. constantly flops. It could when it. We looked at it and we thought like you built water. beams on color. There's machinery forever. bearings or tapered bearings in there. And then you come with this with just a shaft with a bushing in it. Well, it isn't even a bushing. I guess it has four sections. You do need GPS. [BLANK_AUDIO] Electric drive, we'll get to that at the back. Just for. mainly for planting our beans in between the corn rows. get so you're not tramping on. and seven and a half inch beans.

2:

And so how did you make that change to the twins? Just...

3:

we got running, trying to plant 215 inches. in between a 30 inch cornrow. And it would, it didn't have to be off very much. on the roll. And that depth wheel run right on the row just lays the beans on top and you will not These, these seed discs are war on this, on this. They're getting replaced before wheat this year. The front has a little bit of a beveled edge left on it, or the rear. the beveled edge is pretty well gone. it like this. These seem to wear I don't know. Log guys say it's corn stalks but we've been told by a few people that it's... 'Cause I'm little soybeans. They're so st- Tough, right? Maybe we should. look into like. plastic like Needham wheels maybe would be better. plastic I'm not sure these are

1:

We run the closing spike closing wheels on the rear. We like them better than the smooth ones. Yeah, we had smooth ones on our old drill and we went to the copperhead, and then John Deere's basically went to the same thing. and they did help a lot just in them days. That's one part of doing these big fields is 95% of the field is ready and there's 5% that we shouldn't be there. But you can't wait for that 5%. It's close but it's not quite right. So stuff like that does help close the trench. It's electric drive. Like I said, electric.

3:

there's four electric motors on it so it does four section control. does walk on the back as well but it's the same as the It's just a poor design. really not happy with it. Monty. The tank is 120- incorrect. I believe it is. So you can plant, you can plant around 50-ish acres, I believe, if I remember right, of wheat with it, which is fine because the fertilizer is 300 gallons, so it'll plant 60 acres, so you fill seed, fill fertilizer both at the same time. Is there an option on this planter that that box can be split in half? No.

2:

sure in terms of being able to have more than one variety on tap in terms of variable.

1:

if we could plant. Two different. at once like for our cover crop part like these bio strips or whatever if we're

3:

As far as two different varieties of seed, you just... Yeah, just mix them together.

2:

(both laughing)

3:

do very, it's extra. drill. If you... if you calibrate it... between seed variety changes it is extremely accurate with the it has a on it. If you do that calibration, and it says it's gonna plant 50 acres, it'll plant 50. acres. The guessing part of that is... now, which is very nice. You can bring it up. we run everything here. as a deer. So we run Operation Center and I can dial in on my phone. And I can see the display in the, the. on my phone while I'm filling. left to fill or plant, I can just... put 10 acres worth of seed in the drill and and shut the agar off rather than years before he'd. . bottom half will. [NOISE] >> Easy. So yeah, if you were switching between varieties. less stuff now that can be.

2:

It's very simple. So anything else guys? I don't think so. Okay. Well, again, thank you for taking the time. to show us around the drill. We really appreciate that. Yep. So my next question to you, you've got the new planter. relatively recent as well what were the game changers were those two units that are the

3:

this far. Sea drill was a big thing. They have a better downforce system on the newer, those new drills. It was a 1990 drill before that. to grave and the section control on it.

2:

the thought process that you have to go through. If the decision is to upgrade a plan. expansive, where should you start? What are the things that are the first things you need to think about in terms of this is why I need to.

3:

Where is a... Like as far as the seed drill, you know. a few things on it, but it starts getting costly once certain components really get worn out on it. Right. Can you talk about, you know, in previous years where you had planters?

2:

and planters, can you think about any mistakes--

1:

wish you hadn't gone there and that others might be able to learn from not going there? On this planter here behind us, we didn't go with colters in front of a row you We had that on our previous planters, we thought we had to do that little wee bit of a slot there, tillage slot or whatever. And we were a little leery whether we were going to do it or not. from it but I think it was a good choice because it that just was...

2:

other thing on the ground that took away your down pressure. So. It's interesting to think about the early days of no-till and the innovative farmers and you know relatively small planters in those days and every winter they were in the shop with more stuff being added to them and now we've been sort of in no-till long enough, people seem to be trying to unweight them, take other gizmos off of these planters and strip them down. Do you guys agree with that? Yeah, a hundred percent. I guess a lot.

3:

First no-till guys would always like three colders, - You were just around ahead of it, right? - He was at Tilley's.

2:

Yeah. And you think that we are able to do this, take stuff off of it. because the ground is in better shape.

3:

no till time? Yeah, or it's experience too, right? Yeah, I think.

1:

[BLANK_AUDIO] And it's just that fear of getting over having to see the ground work black. I don't think each year. You just plant and you don't worry about it anymore. used to. Yeah, the first time we planted in the green, it scared us.

2:

we know till it scares us. And when you had that first time experience what percentage of the acres...

1:

whole turkey? No, like the first time we no-tailed was like I say 35 acre. And then corn was that same field was the first time we did corn and we were leery on that but. With Plant and Green, we started at a couple hundred acres, and that didn't bother us

2:

it on good years. Okay. So after that first experience, how long did it take you to throw everything into green? I think we did 200 acres.

1:

in 2015 of our wheat. and the whole. to 1000 acres.

2:

done the next year was all cover crop. And it just worked for you. It worked for us. Yeah. Very good. So you know, as I said to you a little earlier, I've had people The price of farm equipment has taken a bit of the fun out of farming. and the decision making is much harder. Do you guys have any advice to people on-- eating equipment.

3:

a drill with a cart instead of the... which would give you a... bigger tire options to help with the compaction issue. But with some of our hails and stuff, we were worried that the ... get portion of the drill too. there's not there's not a lot of ground like that but there's enough ground that if sideways, it could be a very costly... - Understood. - Mass. - Yeah. - So we've stuck with the CCS.

2:

the weight and stuff. But again, you're not working ground. You got as much rubber as you can get on it. And we wait. And you're patient. Gotcha. OK. So relatively recent purchases on both the drill and the corn planter. Planting Department that... is going to support what you guys are trying to do with your system as a whole? I guess maybe explore that option of that. the trash wiper. Yeah, row cleaning. Row cleaning thing. So this is a unit that's built by a farm family in Quebec and you can get them in six to twenty-four row configurations essentially two cleaners stacked behind and apart from each other. And...

1:

working with the honeys. Yeah, just it would I think them days where you're just planting through that areas where the buggy's run and it's got the corn stalks packed down really tight to the ground and it... there and you can tell that. there's just certain varieties of corn just there's so much trash there that it would be nice to have that just pushed off to the side a bit so you could you know that you're getting down there. So we just...

2:

tillage piece, Kevin, really. It's just, it's clearing the residue. Yes. And so that clearing the residue gets you a little bit more sunlight to dry that out that you're talking about. A little bit more sunlight and we could likely cut our soybean seeding population back if we knew that we were on the ground all the time. Yeah. Very good. Well that brings us to the end and I just want to say thank you to Kevin and Jason and Phil for letting me team up with them the last couple of summers to understand their operation