by Lucas Veale, Assumption, IL

Cool and damp weather had field work on hold in central Illinois this week. However, most of the corn is planted from Illinois Rt 16 to the northern reaches of central Illinois. A few farmers have begun to plant beans, but it is a very limited few.

We still see some dimensions changing within GS3 2630 displays with implement detection. Please make sure that the dimensions on your tractor and planter are staying consistent. They can change with a simple key cycle. Each morning before you start, make a quick check that the measurements are the same as the day before and the little white triangle representing the Starfire receiver is located at the front of the cab. We have seen them move to the pivot point of the planter which will adversely affect the section control turn on and turn off points.

If you have a Kinze planter that was updated with version 2.0 PMM ISO Bus software you will be unable to shut off a seed tube for a specific row. Kinze has new software that will fix this but you must request it at this time with an email to the Kinze service department. It will still show as version 2.0 when you check the software version in the monitor after the update.

Be sure to use diff lock with Autotrac. This will take some of the wiggle out of the steering.

Please use the call center for your general operating questions. Customers will get an answer much more quickly than calling their local AMS guy who is most likely in the field with another customer. You can also use this number for all of your subscription activations. The call center number is 217-693-6209.

Customers continue to see 0 or very small margin numbers on certain rows. Many times simply raising the planter and zeroing out the margin sensors will solve the problem. The planter uses an average margin across the planter to determine if any adjustments need to be made with the automatic down force system. Rows in the center of the planter are going to usually run less margin than the rest of the planter because they are near the tractor tires and planter frame tires so they will see more compacted ground than a row on the outside of the planter.