When it comes to farming, everything starts with the seed. Unexpected downtime, poorly established fields and slower seeding speeds are all factors that can affect your bottom line. With that in mind, our research and development team set out to design, test and manufacture an air seeder that would address these factors, to ensure a profitable seeding season.

By combining years of in-field and in-house research, decades of customer feedback and our renewed commitment to advancing farming through innovation, our team developed several new technologies and manufacturing processes that directly addressed the most common challenges we knew our customers were facing in the field.

The result of that process is the Morris Quantum air drill. This drill isn’t just an update or an improvement, which is why we didn’t call it the C3 Contour. It represents the next generation of air drills, a new product packed with innovations and technologies that will guide the future development of products in our lineup.

What can the Quantum do for you? Read on to discover how we solved the most common problems producers face during seeding season.

Durability for Decreased Downtime

  • Stronger Frame Design The Quantum is the first in our product line to use our innovative new frame technology. Traditionally, the frames of tillage equipment are welded together using butt joints and fish plating to strengthen each joint, but butt joints have never been particularly strong. This new frame design improves joint fatigue stress by 154% by connecting the 4×6 inch tubular frame of the Quantum using chrome pins that are 27% larger than those on the C2 Contour, which slide into hardened steel bushings at the frame hinge points. 
  • Heavy-Duty Hitch The hitch on the Quantum has been completely redesigned. We added 20% more steel, making this our strongest hitch ever. To reduce the chances of the Quantum getting stuck, we borrowed from the Contour series, employing a low pull point that alleviates draft load onto the front tires.The hitch also includes a greasable new hitch clevis, which is designed to articulate and prevent wear. This hitch clevis can also be found on the quad hitch at the back of the drill, for attaching tow behind carts.
  • Large Single Castor Tires Rural roads and highways in the spring are a threat to the stability of the machine during transport, and ruts and washouts can cause problems in the field. To solve this, we replaced the dual castoring 16.5-16.1 FL tires on the C2 Contour with a large single castor 600/50-22.5 tire across the machine. The large single castor tire reduces castor wobble on rough pavement during transport, while the larger diameter of the tire and the 19% increase in tire height smooths the ride for the machine no matter the condition of the field.
  • Row Unit Features The extended shank holder on the Quantum improves trip action, releasing faster off rocks. Compact linkage arms reduce stress on linkage pivots, and the parallel linkage pivots use 1-inch chrome pins, our largest pins yet.
  • Low Product Plugging The IP boot design is more resilient to build-up with seed treatment and fertilizer dust during operation. The opener system is designed to prevent back pressure in the ground that results in soil plugging.

Agronomic Performance for Maximized Yield Potential

  • Precise Depth Control In 2008, Morris was the first company to introduce a parallel link independent hoe opener into the Canadian marketplace. The parallel linkage feature with a 1:1 opener to packer ratio ensures that the depth control and the seed opener angle of entry into the soil is exact over a range of travel of +/-8 inches. This opener won’t carve deep even when travelling over the crowns of hills and is less prone to losing seed placement when running through shallow depressions.

 

 

  • Superior Soil-Seed Contact For seed to germinate, it must imbibe water. To promote uniform seed germination, we pack the soil around the seed. This improves the soil contact with the seed through breaking down large soil aggregates and reducing soil porosity, which allows water to move from higher soil moisture areas to the packed soil surrounding the seed. Soil-seed contact is impacted by three factors:
    • Trash Flow Eliminating bunching and piles of crop residue collecting on the shank of the opener is important during shallow seeding. These residue bunches interfere with the flow of the soil around the opener to fill the furrow before packing, resulting in uncovered seed and spotty germination. The Quantum, like its predecessor the C2 Contour, maximizes the lowest catch point on the opener and reclines the opener shank 12 degrees. The reversible “anti-skew” packer arm has a smooth design to eliminate catching of crop residue. These features allow you to plant into taller stubble, with a more fluid flow of crop residue around the opener and shank.
    • Soil Fracturing Influenced by soil types, environmental conditions and opener design, soil fracturing reduces soil to seed contact, which in turn reduces crop emergence. The two factors that affect soil fracturing are the opener tip width and the depth the opener is used. Most opener manufacturers favour a wide tip that explodes soil laterally away from the opener to improve wear life. However, in some environmental and soil conditions this results in increased soil fracturing. Our paired row openers have 0.5-inch wide opener tips. In testing, this opener resulted in improved crop emergence, due to reduced soil fracturing.
    • Packing There has been significant research evaluating how packers improve crop emergence by soil to seed contact. The Quantum offers a range of packer wheel options to complement the ground engaging tools that are available. When choosing a packer remember it should always overlap the seed row and wider packers disperse the packing force across a larger surface area.
  • Outstanding Product Separation We’ve measured the impact of fertilizer rates with our double-shoot openers for a decade. The results? Our double-shoot openers consistently maintain a high degree of fertilizer and seed separation, which means our openers are relatively insensitive to fertilizer rates. We’ve consistently measured a high proportion of seed being placed in the intended seedbed, with fertilizer being placed in an unfractured channel below the seedbed.
  • Improved Seed Distribution Across the Machine The Quantum features a redesigned air system including a new 28 millimeter flat fan divider head. Tested against our previous
    24 millimeter heads, the new head reduced the average variance from 5.3% to 2.1%, resulting in more uniform seed and product delivery to each row. These heads also help to minimize issues when planting larger seeded pulse crops.

Meet Your Goals for Increased Productivity

  • Plant More Acres per Day Our 70-foot Quantum with a 15-inch shank spacing and paired row opener working at 6 mph will plant the same number of acres as a 90-foot drill with a working speed of 4.5 mph. 
  • Controlled Traffic Farming The Quantum has main frame tires on 3 metre centres, an important consideration for minimizing traffic tracks in the field.
  • Options That Work for Your Operation With the broadest range of row unit spacing options, a depth shim system to allow for deeper seeding, a proven depth cam system for rapid depth control changes and the same packer options available on the C2 Contour, the Quantum can meet the unique demands of every field.
  • Active-Opener Hydraulics The Quantum uses an active hydraulic system to control opener pressure, with a new user-friendly controller with options: a single touch opener lift and lower, and adjustable opener pressure from the tractor. This new hydraulic system is compatible with the TopCon X35 control system, which adds Autolift, a feature that automatically lifts and lowers openers at headlands, and Autopack, a system that allows the user to change opener packing force on the X35 monitor.

When it comes to the Morris Quantum, it’s clear: we designed, tested and manufactured it with producers in mind.

What do you think of the Morris Quantum? Tweet us @Morris_Seeding