The Bullet Development

Why develop a machine that is different?

All living things need protection from weather extremes such as wind, flooding and the sun. The soils in Australia are no different in that they need to be protected from extremes of nature and nature itself does that very efficiently. In nature, when the material used to protect the soils from these extremes has finished that job, it rots into the soil maintaining the organic content and general well being of our soils. The organic content of soils in the wheat-belt has been steadily falling and chemical use has been steadily increasing over a number of years.

It has been said "If Australia remained uninhabited for the next hundred years, all of the soil would have ground cover". Ground cover protects the soil from the elements, it protects it from water erosion, wind erosion and evaporation and other damage due to the sun.

Buzz words such as "No Till", "Direct Drill" and "Minimum Till" have been used in Australia for many years. However, farmers and machinery manufacturers alike have found it easier to get rid of stubble, burning it instead of developing stubble handling techniques.

· Retaining stubble slows down wind speed at ground level thus shielding the soil and giving it some structure to protect it against the wind.

· Retaining stubble stops run-off, it ensures that rain will be absorbed into the soil where it falls and not erode yet more soil traveling to some dam catchment.

· Retaining stubble protects the soil from the sun rays thus allowing micro activity beneath the surface and reducing evaporation due to heating of the soil.

· Retaining stubble ensures that organic material is returned to our soils thus promoting micro activity and a better soil structure.

The biggest impediment to stubble retention has been the inability of machines to plant a crop and leave the stubble on top. The vast majority of planting machines in Australia are tined machines and in trash they simply drag the stubble along and clog up.

We have taken on the challenge to overcome the traditional problems associated with disc planters and we believe the development of our Bullet disc planter heralds a new era in planting technology because our machine can retain the stubble but it can do much, much more;

· We can plant at speeds up to 25kph or the same speed as the farmer is now spraying

· We can plant in one-third to one half the time it takes a tined machine thus giving the farmer enormous savings on labor.

· We use 35-55% of the fuel used planting with a tined machine and with fuel costs exploding at the moment this is a great saving.

· Most of all, we can plant in a fraction of the time it takes tined implements and other disc seeders thus giving the farmer flexibility to take advantage of rainfall patterns.

This machine has been developed in New South Wales over the past four years and has been used this year to plant crops in NSW and Western Australia.

Background

The idea of two discs in front followed by a single press wheel has been around for some time. There have been numerous attempts at manufacturing machines using different configurations. Previous to this design, none have been able to place the seed at a constant depth and handle stubble over the whole range of soils.