Market Farming

[Ryan Wood-Beauchamp <woodbeau AT gmail.com>]

I just purchased a Jang and haven't yet gotten to trialing the different rollers with different sized seed to see which rollers work best for different seeds.  I did talk with everyone I could find who has used the Jang and got consistent feedback about a few things.  

Everyone who had used the double disc openers said that they worked very well at preventing the seeder from being bogged down by residue: it sounds like it can effectively reduce tillage, but wouldn't work in a no-till system.  The furrow isn't quite as uniform when using the double disc opener (it makes steeper sides than the standard plow), but it seems like it's much more desirable than having the seeder bog down in crop residue.  As for beets and chard, one person commented that they can be problematic with the Jang.  The issue is with the copper plate that conforms to the seed roller to prevent the seed from dropping until it reaches the bottom of the roller, closest to the soil.  That copper plate has a smooth piece of cloth on the inside that the seeds rub against, and rough seeds like beets and chard can quickly tear up that cloth and subsequently cause problems with smaller seeds, like brassicas.  He recommended simply taking that copper plate out when seeding large, rough seeds like beets.  It takes about ten seconds to take it out and put it back in.

The other thing we liked is that the folks at Johnnys were happy to allow us to order more rollers than we thought we would need, run some trials to see which ones work the best for the seeds we will use it for, and return the other ones.  Although 20 bucks for just one seed roller seems a little much, I'm pretty sure that we can do everything with about 5 rollers.  Although we haven't tested it yet, I think it's a fantastic upgrade from the earthway, although we'll still use our earthway for snap beans.

Ryan Wood-Beauchamp
Evening Song Farm, VT