At a customer event and product launch in Phoenix in early November, Bourgault had several new products to show — but the event’s centrepiece was clearly the new 100-foot 7-Plex 3545 Paralink Hoe Drill displayed just outside the event centre.
All the products featured had been under development for some time, including the new drills. When John Deere revealed its 830-horsepower 9RX tractors earlier this year, “there were high-fives” among the engineers working on the drill, one Bourgault product rep said with a chuckle.
CAUGHT ON VIDEO: Bourgault launches 7-plex air drills
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When hitched to the new drill and a large air cart, none of those horses are likely to go to waste.
“Demand for the 100-foot drill has never gone away,” Bourgault territory manager Curtis Hinrichsen says. “It’s only going to climb.”
Now with even higher horsepower tractors coming from the major brands, that is likely to be true in spades.
But when working widths stretch longer than a semi-trailer truck, operating those implements can get complicated. Bourgault, however, made “simplicity” the basis of the new drill design, according to Hinrichsen.
“The theme for our event here at Phoenix has been capacity without complexity,” he said. “So we made this drill very simple to fold, unfold and use.”
The new 3545 7-Plex Series Paralink Hoe Drills will be available in 80- to 100-foot working widths and will hit dealers’ lots in time for the 2026 seeding season.
Although Bourgault has previously offered a 100-foot drill, the new release is significantly different than the earlier version.
“Our first 100-foot drill was a fantastic product, but as times have changed, we’ve seen the need for some improvements,” Hinrichsen says. “That’s what we think we’ve done with this new model 3545.”
The first significant difference is in the size of tires on which the new drill rides.
“It uses the same high-float kit we’ve used since 2014 on all our conventional-fold drills,” he says, “but we beefed it up. It’s on steroids — massive 900/65R32 tires on the main frame actually give it more flotation on the main frame than our previous 3335 drills.”
Aside from offering wider working widths, the 7-Plex frames use wider spacing between rows, with an extra five inches of space between each frame rail. That allows for improved trash flow and provides space allowing the drill to be ordered with the brand’s twin-shank TriMax openers.
The 7-Plex drills can also be ordered with 10- or 12-inch row spacing. And they can still handle very high rates of fertilizer.
“So you’re not compromising yield when you buy this kind of capacity,” Hinrichsen adds.
One problem for farmers and dealers is the resale market for used equipment of that size is pretty limited. But the new 7-Plex drills can be quickly downsized. The outer wing sections are designed for easy removal to shorten the drills to a more popular size.
“One of the challenges in the past is a 100-foot drill is not as marketable (used),” Hinrichsen says. “If we can convert this to an 80-foot drill, it makes that market larger. With the 84-foot 7-Plex, you can drop that one down to 66 feet.”
For road transport, the seven sections fold up to squeeze down into a remarkably small package, considering its overall size.
“We actually make comparisons for this 100-foot 3545 drill to a 76-foot’s transport dimensions,” says Hinrichsen. “It’s within a few inches of a 76-foot in width and about a foot in height.”
New air cart tank option
On the air carts that feed the drills, Bourgault also had something new to show: the “Wing Tank.”
Currently, the brand offers a 44-bushel “Saddle Tank” option for canola. But as demand for more onboard capacity is growing, Bourgault will offer the 66-bushel Wing Tank. It can be loaded from the top using the cart’s conveyor.
MORE VIDEO: Bourgault debuts ‘Wing Tank’ for air carts
“If they want to use the Wing Tank for wheat or phosphorus to extend the acres, they can,” Hinrichsen says.
The current Saddle Tank will still be available as an option.
ALSO: New system brings digital control in-house
To control the new drills and eventually Bourgault’s full line of seeding equipment, the brand will be moving away from the Topcon systems it has been using and introducing its own in-house system dubbed BiC (Bourgault Intelligent Control).
“This is a brand-new technology for us,” territory manager Jordan Henderson says. “It’s a brand-new wireless seeding controller. It’s an iOS-based app that’s taking us into the future with our seeding controller capabilities.
“It’s been in development for five years and seeding for three years.”
Because the system was developed entirely in-house by the brand’s own team, Henderson thinks there will be a benefit to customers who can connect directly to the brand if they encounter any problems.
MORE VIDEO: Bourgault launches new digital seed control system
“That’s going to be a huge benefit for our customers. Our response time now to issues, to changing conditions or options, is going to be extremely quick.”
In field trials the system has been used on 50,000 acres so far, and the company expects that number to grow to over 100,000 by the end of next spring.
BiC is designed to seamlessly work with a major-brand tractor monitor’s controller, which will control some functions while the BiC system controls others.
“We needed to get to a simpler, easier-to-use, more intuitive system,” Henderson says. “The biggest challenge we’ve had over the past few years was the complexity of the system and the learning curve.”
One of the features intended to make the system simpler is “product-centric seeding,” which focuses on the total rate of each product being applied — even if it’s being drawn out of two separate tanks.
“There is also a button bar, because it can be challenging at times as you’re running through the field to find the right buttons with a tablet,” says Henderson. “We found our co-operators, once they were seeding, controlled all of the features through the button bar.”
The monitor is wireless, which eliminates the need for extensive cable connections in the cab.
“One of the drawbacks with the previous system was it was fairly intensive to get a tractor wired up to use it,” he adds. “In this case, it’s just putting a tablet into the tractor.
“The ability to seamlessly interact with the tractor controllers means the data is going to be livestreamed, which is a big difference for us. There’s no more USB sticks. We know how important data is to our customers.”
For those growers interested in getting a quote on the new products, the company will soon launch a build-and-price feature on its website. Interested customers can spec out a drill with the features they want and see the suggested list price in Canadian dollars.
