I never liked planting at night... only if I was trying to finish up ahead of a storm system moving in, otherwise I preferred planting in daylight... too much can go wrong on the planter that is harder to see and catch at night... particularly if you don't have a monitor which we never did other than the ol' Mark 1 eyeballs... nice thing about a 3 point planter is when you pick up at each end, you leave a few seeds hitting the ground until the drive wheels stop turning so it's easy to see if it's dropping seed, at least. Still get off about every 30 minutes and go check each row for depth and spacing just to be sure, have a look at everything just to make sure no bearings are going out or anything is locking up... Helping with planting at the BIL's a few years back up in Indiana, we picked up a small stone between the V press wheels and it was totally rooting out that row. Fortunately I saw it pretty quickly (within about fifty yards of him picking it up) and flagged him down and we pried it out... and luckily it was in soybeans on 15 inch rows so not that big of a deal, not like corn. Anyway just some of the things that can catch you by surprise that not even the monitor is going to tip you off to...
Yeah I heard that sorry for yall's luck... we here in TX have FINALLY had a normal year of rainfall after the last two years of BAD drought... like 1/3 to 1/4 of our normal rainfall for the year bad... plus months on end through the summer of well over 100 degree temps every day, between 5-10 degrees above normal. Those are absolute killers... what moisture you did have just goes POOF and that's it. Why I never fuss about rain... which is easier to do just running cow/calf and not row cropping anymore, granted... rain makes things difficult and can ruin a crop or prospects, but drought can flat leave you with NOTHING...
That's funny you said that about the shovel, my grandpa had a shovel like that too. Either myDad or Uncle has that shovel now. Grandpa has somebody else do the digging if he needs it done.
I tried laying some 7 month biodegradable plastic for the first time. What a nightmare... It wouldn't stay under the press wheels so we had to keep shoveling the edges. And randomly it would tear halfway through the row. I tried every adjustment I could think of to no avail. Ended up switching back to our regular plastic and finished the field with zero issues.
The Amish we buy it from once had a skid of biodegradable plastic get rained on. It was a bear to lay because the water started the break down process.
Sounds like you got a bad batch. Maybe press wheels angled wrong?? I thought they were supposed to push it down against the ground and perhaps pull it slightly from the middle toward the edges and the covering disks running right behind to throw the dirt over the edges to lock it down... sure a mess when things don't want to cooperate like that...
