Meters, Drives, & Displays – An Overview

Aside from the style of planter frame that works best on your farm, the most important choices regarding a row crop planter are the type of seed meter, the drive used to operate it, and the system used to monitor and control it.

When you consider that today’s corn planters can routinely plant 500 acres a day, it is hard to imagine that only 200 years ago a farmer did really well to plant only ONE acre of corn in a long day by making holes with a hoe or “dibble stick” and dropping seeds into the ground. However, as soon as the Industrial Revolution hit the American shore, planting quickly evolved to hand-actuated planters, then to horse-drawn drill planters, and finally to check row planters.

Check-row planting remained popular until the late 1940s. But, as research proved that spaced kernels produced greater yields than hill-dropped corn, that the growing use of corn pickers required equally spaced stalks to work effectively, and the introduction of chemical weed control, ground contact drive systems with adjustable rate transmissions were developed, and became increasingly popular.

Kinze Meter Drives

Kinze offers different systems for driving seed meters. Selecting the system best for your farm is dependent upon many factors including, farm size, shape of fields, the typical number of prime planting days, types of seeds planted, and soil variability.

Blue Drive Electric Drive

Kinze introduced the Blue Drive electric drive and its companion Blue Vantage display in 2019 and it quickly became recognized as the easiest-to-use drive system in the industry.

Blue Drive electric drive is the simple, reliable, accurate, high-performance solution for getting crops in the field when weather limits the planting season. It’s controlled with the Blue Vantage display that makes it simple to use and enables individual row control to accurately plant seed for maximum yield and profit. The Kinze-designed system features universal modules with built-in diagnostic indicators and Ethernet connectivity for easy maintenance, faster system updates, unmatched reliability, and capacity for future feature additions.

Other key benefits include . . .

• No drive shafts or chains to maintain; no gears to switch to change population rates
• User experience and overall design are optimized by using a proprietary, non-ISOBUS software architecture
• Future feature additions and software upgrades are easily added for lower cost of ownership and easy maintenance

Hydraulic Drive

While under development since the 1990s, hydraulic meter drives did not become popular until approximately 2005. With the adoption of GPS for agricultural applications and increased precision farming practices, hydraulic meter drives now provide the necessary variable population rate control utilizing prescription mapping.  This drive system is ideal for variable seed rate prescriptions and allows farmers to change rates on the go from the seat of their tractor.

Ground Contact Drive

This method for driving the meter and controlling seed populations has remained popular for many years. While modern ground contact drives are accurate, dependable, and easily adjustable for different populations, they cannot utilize prescription population control or other precision field map capabilities necessary for maximum yields. Planters with ground contact drive can be equipped with point-row clutches for half-width planting.

Electric Row Clutches for Ground Contact or Hydraulic Drive

When electric row unit clutches are used with ground contact or hydraulic drive, farmers can save on seed and increase yields by reducing over-planting when operating in irregularly shaped fields. You can control up to 36 rows, in two- or three-row sections and stop seed flow by turning off seed meters (and planter sections) based on field mapping and previously planted areas.

Kinze Seed Meters

It used to be, when farmers went to the field to plant, the planting monitor on the tractor was equipped with simple indicator lights. These lights showed whether seeds were actually getting into the ground. If a seed tube would plug, a monitor alarm would sound and the problem could be taken care of. This technology helped, but was limited – it only enabled farmers to monitor planting activity and no viable data was collected.

During the late 1990s and mid-2000s, significant improvements were made to tube sensors and monitors. For the first time, farmers received real-time data enabling quick and easy corrections to the seed population. Singulation—the measurement of how well the meter drops seeds one-by-one—was introduced. Accuracy percentage, measured in real-time, took into account the number of skips and doubles that occurred.

Today, planting speeds have increased, seed size and shapes are more irregular, and planting is at higher populations. Meters must singulate seeds almost perfectly and deliver consistent spacing between seeds for optimum emergence.

True Speed High Speed Meter

Introduced in 2021, the Kinze True Speed high speed meter enables farmers to accurately plant at speeds from 3–12 mph and plant up to twice the number of acres in a day versus a mechanical meter. By controlling the seed from the seed disc all the way to placement in the seed trench, precise singulation and seed spacing are achieved regardless of seed size, shape, or coating. An industry-leading low seed release point delivers superior spacing accuracy for precise seed positioning in the row. The thoughtful and advanced design, utilizing low-wear and easy-to-change components, benefits the farmer with a lower cost of ownership over other systems.

Other key benefits include . . .

• The True Speed high speed meter is controlled by the Blue Vantage display – only three clicks are required to set up and begin planting
• A single, no adjust singulator is all that’s needed for planting corn and other crops
• Access to the meter and delivery tube are tool-less for easy and efficient crop changeovers and maintenance
• The self-aligning flighted belt in the delivery tube does not stretch or require removal from the row unit after planting is done
• Self-aligning seed delivery tube installs easily without row unit disassembly; the mini-hopper locks up for easy access

True Rate Vacuum Meter

The True Rate vacuum meter not only plants corn and soybeans but also many other crops as well, with 99% accuracy at speeds up to 8 mph, as field conditions allow. Its simple, durable, and easily maintained design requires only one singulator for easy operation, optimum performance, and low cost of ownership. When changing crops, an easy changeover of the meter disc and a quick adjustment to the singulator is all that is required.

Other key benefits include . . .

• Changeovers are quick and easy by using a single button meter cover release and a quick release, quarter-turn seed disc hub
• Long wear life is provided by the engineered polymer seal
• Seed consistently drops from the disc at the 3 o’clock position, at zero velocity, regardless of planter speed or seeding rate
• Raised edge on seed disc provides an unobstructed seed drop on all slopes

Brush Meter 2.0

The proven Kinze brush meter 2.0 provides a low-maintenance and accurate mechanical meter solution for high crop population rates. It is easy to clean, operate, and maintain. Changing seed discs and wear items require no tools, and the low-maintenance and low-cost durable brushes can be replaced in seconds.

Finger Pick-Up Meter

The finger pick-up meter is a mechanical meter solution for planting mid-range-sized corn seeds at speeds of 4–6 mph. It also plants sunflower seeds using specialized fingers.

Kinze Planter Displays

Depending on the seed meter and drive system equipped on a planter, Kinze offers different planter displays. The Blue Vantage display is always paired with the Blue Drive electric drive that runs the True Speed and True Rate electric drive meters. The Ag Leader InCommand 1200 display operates planters equipped with a hydraulic or ground contact drive. And the basic KPM III seed monitor is limited to planters equipped with ground contact drives.

Blue Vantage Display

The designed-by-Kinze and built-for-Kinze Blue Vantage display is the industry’s easiest-to-use, dedicated planter display that eliminates the entering of endless information and pressing numerous confirmations just to start planting. The innovative, clean, and streamlined display provides simple, accurate, and intuitive planter control for high-productivity planting. Factory presets remove the labor and guesswork from setup, while a dedicated planting screen provides all critical information at one glance during planting. With system diagnostics built-in, troubleshooting is simplified for optimum efficiency.

Other key benefits include . . .

• The easiest-to-use, ruggedized touchscreen tablet is intuitive to understand and easy to remove from the docking station
• Three clicks are all that is necessary to set up and begin planting
• Setup guesswork is eliminated by the display factory presets
• All critical planting information is displayed on a single, user-optimized display screen
• It provides quick system updates, has robust built-in diagnostics and training modes, and requires only one solutions provider for all user and troubleshooting questions

Starting with the planter model year 2022, Blue Connect, a Kinze-developed cloud-based data solution, and its first integrated feature, Map Sync, joined the growing list of Blue Vantage advantages.

• Blue Connect and the Blue Vantage display exchange data whenever Blue Vantage has a customer-supplied internet connection, either a cellular hotspot or Wi-Fi, and signed into a Blue Connect account
• There are no unlock codes required since it is included with the Blue Vantage display – and the farmer always owns the data
• Setting up a Blue Connect account is fast, easy, and completed right from the display

Ag Leader InCommand

InCommand 1200 is used to control Kinze planters equipped with a hydraulic drive or ground contact drive.

• Works with Ag Leader’s AgFiniti® mobile app
• Has tablet-like interaction
• Split screen view
• Provides row-by-row mapping
• Is an advanced planter controller

KPM III

An easy-to-use, economical monitor. It reports real-time results by row or by an average of the entire planter. Display data includes skips, multiples, singulation, relative planting rate (bar graphs), ground speed, row spacing, seed population (by row), average seed population, seed spacing (by row), area counters – 40, vacuum level, pneumatic down pressure, bulk fill scales, and bulk fill pressure.

Your Best Choice

As you can see, there are many seed meter, drive, and display choices to make when outfitting a planter for your farm. While Kinze offers many basic options, as well as simple-to-use high-tech selections, the best choice is ultimately that which matches your farming operation. And Kinze is here now, and in the future, to provide innovative solutions – built by farmers who listen to farmers.

For more information check out the Kinze planters and their performance features at Kinze.com, or visit your local Kinze dealer.