# Truax Flex II No-Till Drill



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

After years of B&M at my local FSA office, it seems that they have bought our county a Truax no-till drill. It looks like the local co op may manage the use of it. I saw it today at the co op and I was impressed. The coulters looked heavy and well built....it has 3 seed boxes....and a friend at the co op sent the operators manual home with me today for me to study. People from Truax are coming to teach them how to operate it....I might just show up myself that day. 

The only negative that I have seen about the drill so far is that the wheels are on the sides of the drill instead of behind. Seems this drill is manufactured up in New Hope, Minnesota. I guess I won't be looking as hard to find a drill for a year or two until some of the local numb skulls tear this one all to crap. But it does look tough and well built.....hopefully it will take them a little longer to sabotage it.

Regards, Mike


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## woodland (May 23, 2016)

Vol said:


> After years of B&M at my local FSA office, it seems that they have bought our county a Truax no-till drill. It looks like the local co op may manage the use of it. I saw it today at the co op and I was impressed. The coulters looked heavy and well built....it has 3 seed boxes....and a friend at the co op sent the operators manual home with me today for me to study. People from Truax are coming to teach them how to operate it....I might just show up myself that day.
> 
> The only negative that I have seen about the drill so far is that the wheels are on the sides of the drill instead of behind. Seems this drill is manufactured up in New Hope, Minnesota. I guess I won't be looking as hard to find a drill for a year or two until some of the local numb skulls tear this one all to crap. But it does look tough and well built.....hopefully it will take them a little longer to sabotage it.
> 
> Regards, Mike


I thought we had a monopoly on idiots ( numb skulls) but it appears they're everywhere.....


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Unless they just got a new one, not any point in renting one from our FSA office, it will be beat into such a piece of sh*t that one can expect to spend at least three times longer working on it than actually using it. Too many city people that think they are farmers tend to rent it.


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## valleyforage (Apr 28, 2015)

Our county has that exact model they bought with soil and water grant money. It is very nice and extremely accurate. With that being said you can't use it on your own, only one guy is allowed to pull it and you have to pay him an acre charge for his time/tractor. It has seemed to work well and not rented out to anyone and literally drug thru the woods.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

valleyforage said:


> Our county has that exact model they bought with soil and water grant money. It is very nice and extremely accurate. With that being said you can't use it on your own, only one guy is allowed to pull it and you have to pay him an acre charge for his time/tractor. It has seemed to work well and not rented out to anyone and literally drug thru the woods.


Exactly, I seen someone use one to seed a food plot, drug it over tree stumps, rocks and a ditch to get it to the site, then of course the site also had rocks and tree stumps.


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

I don't remember the model but the county here has a Truax drill that I rented a few years ago when I first started farming and lets just say it left alot to be desired. It worked okay for drilling small grains but I was not able to get it to place small seeded grasses at an accurate enough depth to get a decent stand. With my Deere I can get a picture perfect stand by adjusting the gauge wheel on the opener to get the desired seeding depth. Now I'm sure it didn't help that the Truax drill appeared to be well used but it still had some major design flaws.

The worst thing about the whole drill is it apparently did not have clutch to disengage the fluted feed meters when you raised the openers so once you engaged drill at the drive wheel it was metering seed out regardless if the openers were in the ground or not.....I discovered this after seeding a section of the road between fields......a lot of wasted seed when turning on the headlands in the field as well. Also another complaint I had is Truax would not provide a chart with the drill to give a rough guideline of where to adjust the seeding rate for various seeds. Didn't mean to disappoint you......hopefully the one your county has bought will be better than the one here.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Looked at the manual briefly and this one does have a disengage clutch on the drill when raised so as not to dispense seed. I am guessing the one you used also had this but was probably out of adjustment or broken.

It also has depth bands on the openers that come factory set to give a seed planting depth of 3/8" deep(actually cuts 3/4" deep but planting depth is supposedly half of the cut).

It does have suggested fluted meter exposure for various seeds for estimated pounds per acre but suggests individual seed variety calibration for precision drilling.

Definitely not a JD 1590, but I think/hope I can handle it. I think reading thru the operators manual will be key for any user......which means 1 out of 5 users will know what they are actually supposed to be doing....the rest...well, lets just say those are the "close enufs".

Regards, Mike


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

I saw their exhibit at an ag show years ago and liked the looks of it. Not sure but I believe it came standard with 3 boxes for seed. They sent me price info for a couple of years until they must have decided I was not buying soon. Still have it if anybody interested in what they were costing then.

Reading manuals would help a lot of people but it's quicker to learn on the go if its not your machine.


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

Vol said:


> Looked at the manual briefly and this one does have a disengage clutch on the drill when raised so as not to dispense seed. I am guessing the one you used also had this but was probably out of adjustment or broken.
> 
> It also has depth bands on the openers that come factory set to give a seed planting depth of 3/8" deep(actually cuts 3/4" deep but planting depth is supposedly half of the cut).
> 
> ...


 Well it sounds like they have improved some things......good deal. It was 2011 when I used the one the county here has and it wasn't new then......not sure the actual age of the machine.

The one I used did not come with a manual but I asked the guy at the county office for a chart and he said Truax would not provide one.....called Truax also and was told to calibrate the drill that they didn't provide seeding rate charts.

Maybe it was because the drill was well used/abused from being a rental but the factory set depth bands were not the best. It needs to have a way to be able to adjust the seeding depth for different conditions and seed. It was placing small seed like Timothy too deep and the oats could have been a little deeper. If my Deere drill had a single setting for the seeding depth I would not be too pleased with it either.

When I returned the drill I complained about the fact it had metered seed out on the road and would not be paying for as many acres as what the acre meter said. The guy in charge of the drill at the county office said I should have disengaged the drive between fields as it did not have a cut off clutch. I'm just going by what he told me and can't verify that to be the truth.....I suppose there could have been one but it was also torn up or not working.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Sounds like the county people in charge, did not know enough about the drill to be...."in charge".

Regards, Mike


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