Canadian Smart Seeder Turning Heads On Summer Show Circuit
September 11, 2015 
The CX-6 Smart Seeder from Clean Seed Agricultural Technologies, Burnaby, BC, is a precision seed drill/air-cart combo that features a front-folding single row toolbar with mounted tanks.
From the canola plant and poutine to Nineties-era comedian Tom Green and the band Rush, our Canadian neighbors to the north have exported some great innovations to the States over the years.
Clean Seed Agricultural Technologies (Burnbay, British Columbia) hopes to join that group of successful Canada to U.S. crossovers with its CX-6 Smart Seeder, powered by the companies’ proprietary SeedSync mobile software, recently made available stateside via the Rocky Mountain Equipment distribution network.
Basically, the CX-6 Smart Seeder (initially unveiled in 2013, ready for full commercial launch this year) is a precision seed drill/air-cart combo that features a front-folding single row toolbar with mounted tanks, all-cast opener assemblies, plug & play electronic variable-rate metering pods with gentle product handling, individual point shut-off and individual point resolution precision metering at the opener. The system allows up to six individual inputs to be variable-rate applied during seeding, according to Graeme Lempiere, CEO.
“I call it the world’s largest printer — think of it like its printing six different dyes, or products, if you will,” jokes Lempiere from his West Coast office. “Traditional air seeders meter from the tank, so by the time the seed hits the ground it’s very patchy, sometimes up to a 40% variance in the rate being put on.
“Our system sends the seed to the mini hoppers — or pods as we’ll call them — over each row and the six different products can all be mixed in depending on things like soil type, fertility, seed variety,” he explains. “You’re able to put down what you need where you need it and no more or less.”
Lempiere describes it as “a high resolution delivery” of the six inputs — commencing when a soil map in shape file format is uploaded into the SeedSync software platform, showing fluctuation of nutrient needs across a field.
SeedSync then links the soil data from the cab to the drill’s GPS via Stage 2 Bluetooth connection, which Lempiere says is more “industrial and robust” than the Bluetooth signal a typical smartphone uses.
Then, as the grower or applicator tows the CX-6 across the field, it automatically varies the rate of things like nitrogen, sulphur, fungicides and insecticides and different plant health products that are applied at planting with the seed itself.
“It also creates a softer soil bed for the seed too, and instead of applying a generic blend across acres of an entire field you can micromanage each individual area of the field on a per-foot basis, on the fly,” says Lempiere. “You can do VRE — variable-rate everything.”
Clean Seed featured a 60-foot drill with air cart at its booth at Canada’s Farm Progress show over the last two years, taking home the People’s Choice Award (2014) and the Innovations Award (2013 & 2014). Lempiere says a similar set-up will cost about $550,000 and will be available in the U.S. Corn Belt soon.
Spec-wise, the main air cart’s capacity is 450 bushels, and Clean Seed has designed inexpensive nurse carts that will allow virtually non-stop seeding, says Lempiere. Units are being built for use in the northern U.S. and Canadian Prairie farmland.
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