For growers who prefer disc coulters for establishing new crops straight into arable stubbles or a green cover, there are plenty of options – including several newcomers – as this year’s Ultimate Guide reveals.

Horizon Agriculture has added a 4.8m model to its line-up of trailed DSX seed drills, which are available with 167mm, 187mm, 200mm or 250mm coulter spacings and two or three seed/fertiliser tanks.

The slanted and angled single-disc openers are mounted on parallel linkages with manual or automatic hydraulic pressure control, and alternate units can be raised out of work to obtain different row widths.

On the latest models, the opener disc angle has been reduced from 20deg to 10deg to reduce soil throw at fast working speeds and pneumatic adjustment of the slot closing wheel enables fine tuning from the tractor seat.

See also: Farm-made bespoke direct-drill set up to carry discs or subsoiler legs

Horsch

The Horsch Avatar M is an 18m extension of the single-disc opener no-till drill range for growers wanting additional output over the 12m model.

The Avatar M extends Horsch’s single-disc opener drill to 18m working width; its triple compartment hopper measure 12,600 litres © Horsch

The openers, mounted on trailing arms with rubber clamp inserts for flexibility, are arranged in a straight row (as on the 12.25 SD) at the back of a seed cart.

But while the 12m machine’s newly-enlarged 6,500-litre hopper is divided into two sections for the seed and fertiliser version, the 18 M’s is a triple compartment, 12,600-litre structure with individual compartment weighing available to accurately monitor delivery rate and contents level.

In addition to its bigger hopper, the Avatar 12.25 SD has been updated with Isobus control capability and the option of Horsch’s 400-litre MiniDrill supplementary hopper for rapeseed, slug pellets, microgranules and the like.

Novag

The T-ForcePlus no-till drills from French manufacturer Novag are listed for the first time.

The Novag T-ForcePlus drill uses ‘L’ shaped blades either side of a disc to form an inverted ‘T’ slot where seed and fertiliser are placed © Novag

These have an increasingly familiar trailed layout of two sets of coulters positioned ahead of and behind large mid-mounted wheels, but with tracks also available on the largest models up to 9m wide.

A 575mm disc opener has L-shaped blades either side that form an inverted “T”, with seed placed in one of the horizontal slots and fertiliser in the other.

There is automatic coulter pressure adjustment based on soil resistance and individual hydraulic cylinders deliver from 100kg to 500kg of penetration pressure.

Moore

The Moore Uni-drill range is another new listing now that production is being handled by an affiliate of machinery supplier Agri-Linc, which is also one of several dealerships throughout the UK.

Moore Uni-drill Manufacturing, based in Lincolnshire, is building 3m mounted and trailed drills with 90mm (for grass) and 125mm row spacing, either complete metering and air distribution or as a base unit for use with a front-mounted hopper or the buyer’s own hopper installation.

Unlike the original Uni-drill with its disc coulter and press wheel weight transfer system, the current drill has 410mm notched disc openers mounted in pairs on trailing arm with rubber inserts in the frame clamp.

Sky Agriculture

Sky Agriculture’s EasyDrill coulter arrangement is similar to the original Uni-drill concept in having a soft press and depth control wheel ahead of the notched disc opener with up to 250kg of pressure available to ensure ground penetration.

With a working width of 8m, the W 8020 Fertisem is the largest EasyDrill disc no-till seeder from Sky Agriculture © Sky Agriculture

The range now extends to 8m with the EasyDrill W 8020 Fertisem, which comes with either one or two supplementary hoppers and distribution systems of 120-litres capacity each.

Virkar

Another new entry is for Spanish manufacturer Virkar and its disc opener version of the Dynamic trailed drill previously seen only in tine coulter form.

Like its tined counterparts, the Dynamic D has a 5,300- or 6,800-litre hopper for seed only or seed and fertiliser, mounted on a chassis with the soil-engaging components slung beneath in two separate rows.

The single-disc openers are carried on trailing arms with an interconnected hydraulic pressure system for each one delivering up to 250kg of penetrative force, and with a rubber wheel alongside the opener regulating depth.

Row spacings of 190mm and 250mm are possible on the 4.5m, 5m and 6m versions, and it’s 250mm on the 7m model.