Location - Mingenew and Arrino, Western Australia.

We have been using the Stiletto system for two years in our 5000ha cropping program. Our decision to go to Stiletto was based around past experience with Mark Dawson and his hard facing of our deep ripper points, so we knew that wear would not be a problem. Our seeding bar is on 250mm spacing and the Stiletto places a wide ribbon of seed, with fertiliser banded below. The split sowing of the seed reduces the effective row spacing of the bar to approximately 200mm.

Our crops include wheat, lupins, barley, canola, field peas and pastures. Some of our fertiliser has potash blended into it and we now don’t have any fertiliser toxicity problems.

Because the seed is placed near the side wall of the furrow, there is no chance of chemical contact, e.g. Triflurilan. We usually seed wheat at 10-10.5 km/h but have been up to 13 km/h without any Triflurilan damage.

Compared to our neighbor’s identical seeding bar set up with a different sowing system, we have seen crop emerge two days quicker and achieve full ground cover weeks faster.

Our soil types vary from typical Mingenew yellow sand plain, to heavy grey clay at Arrino and many others in between. The Stiletto system performs well in all of these situations.

Perhaps one of the most pleasing aspects of Stiletto is the service back up offered by Stuart and Mark. We had a situation in the first set of fertiliser distributor’s where a small design fault lead to soil blockage in certain soil type and moisture conditions.

The problem was identified, corrected and the units replaced without fuss.

After seeing the results of the MIG Sowing System trials at south Mingenew in 2008, and the reasons as stated above, we are fully confident that our decision to go Stiletto was the correct one.

Gary Cosgrove