The seven-plex folding air drill seeder, part of the Saskatchewan-based company’s eight-year-old Quantum line, is scheduled for a full market release in 2027.

Garth Massie, director of sales for Morris’s parent company, Superior Farms Equipment (SFE), says the new seeder is aimed at enhancing productivity for crop producers working around 9,000 acres.

WHY IT MATTERS: Larger equipment generally allows crop producers to work more acres in a relatively short period of time.

“Canadian farmers probably have the shortest seeding window of anyone in the world,” he says.

“They’re trying to get a lot of work done in a very short amount of time. So there’s been this continuous push on the machinery development side to help farmers get more acres planted every day.”

Aside from increased width (the largest Quantum on the market today is 80 feet), the machine also features an extra six inches (48 inches compared to the previous 42) of spacing per rank compared to smaller Quantum models.

This spacing improves residue handling relative to the seeder width, said SFE director of marketing Melissa MacLean.

“That’s going to maintain the flow without bunching up or plugging so you don’t have to sacrifice any of that by going to a larger machine.”

The decision to go with a fully mechanical seven-plex fold with a single pivot design was based on grower feedback favouring a “traditional” folding machine, says Massie.

The machine’s travel profile — at 28 feet, three inches wide and 18 feet, four inches tall — was designed to be low and narrow in the interest of operator safety.

“Transport underneath power lines … is your key consideration there,” says Massie.

Fertilizer use efficiency was another major consideration in the seeder’s development. The machine uses a high-capacity air system with a smooth, three-inch primary hose to allow easier passage.

“It doesn’t have that rough interior that can restrict airflow,” says MacLean, adding the smooth primary — based on testing — delivers 18 per cent better air flow compared to a rough interior hose.

It’s also paid off in delivery power, says Massie.

“In our testing, we’re able to deliver up to 500 pounds of fertilizer per acre at five m.p.h. (eight km-h). So that’s a really impressive number to hit.”

MacLean also touts the seeder’s independent opener system with “consistent depth control and proven seed/fertilizer separation across the full working width.”

Other specs are much the same as previous Quantums. One exception includes frame depth (96 inches centre to centre compared to 84 inches).

The official launch of the Quantum 100 foot will take place at Ag in Motion July 21-23 near Langham, Sask. It will be paired with the Morris 10 Series 1,440-bushel air cart.

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The addition of the 1440 brings the number of size capacities in the Morris 10 Series line to four, with four tow-behind and three tow-between versions.

“There’s a need for these larger-capacity air carts,” says Morris’ Canadian sales and marketing manager Garth Massie. “It’s all geared around productivity and getting more acres per day in that 30-day seeding window.”

Like the other 10 Series models, the 1440 offers four product tanks.

The tanks on the 1440 are raised a little higher to accommodate the beefed up frame, giving the cart a tall stance. And it rides on dual tires on both the front and rear axles for improved floatation. Up front are VF710/70R42 and on the rear are IF850/75R42 tires.

“We’ve gone to larger-capacity tires,” Massie says. “We need to be cognizant of soil compaction that impacts emergence. So we have larger tires and keep inflation pressures to below 20 p.s.i.”

The front axle on the 1440 is wider to accommodate the duals and still make the cart able to navigate a tight turning radius.

With the extra tank capacity comes more weight, so Morris doubled up the braking effort on the 1440 cart. It is equipped with a “quad caliper” design, which means the carts get a second set for more clamping force. They are controlled by an electric over hydraulic braking system.

“We’ve gone to a dual-caliber brake, and I think we’re the only ones that are doing that,” Massie adds. “It really increases stopping power. They’re wired into the tractor brakes.”

The cart brakes can also be activated independently via an additional in-cab controller.

The front axle also supports a product hose holder that pivots with it on turns, which allows for shorter hose runs from a drill with less vertical rise that can impact flow rates.

Accessing the smaller 110 bushel “Optimizer” tank is easier on the 1440 thanks to an added step. And a swing-away funnel above it allows for easier loading from a conveyor or auger with less spillage.

“It makes it a little easier to access it and raises the level of that tank to the same as the other three,” Massie says.

The other three tanks use a 450-, 235- and 645-bushel split that feeds up to 10 different primary product lines. To fill those tanks, the 1440 gets a 40-foot long conveyor with a 14-inch diameter tube and 24-inch belt.

The new cart is currently only available in a tow-behind configuration. It is now in full production and will be available for the 2026 seeding season.

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“It’s kind of an evolution,” says Garth Massie, Canadian sales and marketing manager at Morris. ‘We had the 9 Series introduced in 2013. We’ve been working behind the scenes on this cart for a while.”

The new 10 Series carts, which will be available as the 660, 820 and 1050, have been undergoing field trials and farmer evaluations for a few seasons.

The new units are also slated to be part of the 2024 Innovations Program at Ag in Motion and will be on display at the Saskatchewan farm show, running July 16-18.

“We’ve been taking it slower on staged releases, really trying to debug this machine before we go full tilt with the production of it,” says Massie. “We’re introducing three, four-tank models. One of the things you’ll notice when you first walk up to it is they are individual tanks on scales. I think it’s in tune with the way the market has gone and what farmers really want in air carts now.

“We’ve designed the tank proportions to try and maximize the number of acres per fill. We have a small tank that is used for granular inoculant or canola. After some testing, the farmers said if you could make that a bit bigger, that would be great. It’s not always completely empty when we go to fill.”

So that tank size has been increased to 80 bushels on the final production models.

“We call it the optimizer tank, because it seems to help stretch the arches per fill,” he adds.

The 660 and 820 will be available in both tow-behind and tow-between configurations. When the series was announced this spring, the 1050 was to be built only as a tow-behind tank, but the company in early July said its 1050 will also be “the largest commercially available tow-between cart.”

The carts will ride on wheels only. Tracks won’t be an option.

“We’ve moved in the direction of larger rims and tires in order to get low inflation pressures and reduce compaction that way,” Massie adds.

The new carts will also get a significantly redesigned metering system. The previous 9 Series used hydraulics to control each section on the tank meters. The 10 Series will use a maintenance-free electric drive motor to run each section individually.

“The metering system is all new,” says Massie. “Before, our sectional control system was hydraulically driven and there were gear clusters with a hydraulic cylinder that actuated them. Now we’ve gone to electric motors, so there’s a motor for each section. We’ll go up to 10 sections. So there is an electric motor that drives each section on each tank. So you could have up to 40 different motors on a cart.”

For loading, the 10 Series will use a new conveyor design built by partner company Convey-All, which Massie says has demonstrated it can load up to 108 bushels of wheat per minute during field trials.

Many of the design changes on the new carts were intended to reduce the amount of down time. Massie says was a key focus for engineers when creating the 10 Series.

“At Morris there was a focus at looking at how do we minimize the amount of time the drill isn’t running up and down the fields actually seeding, reducing down time.”

Although Morris and Rite Way are now joined under a new parent company, they will continue to operate as individual brands, but farmers will eventually begin seeing slightly different decals on the sides of implements. The firm says they will begin transitioning their product lines to Rite Way SFE, Morris SFE and ProAG SFE.

“Over time you’re going to see some Superior Farms decals on Morris equipment and on Rite Way equipment,” says Massie. “We’ll kind of ease into it. Of course there’s brand equity in Morris and Rite Way. The thing for people to get used to is Superior Farms. I think you’ll see Morris and Rite Way in the long term be very prominent. You’ll also see Superior Farms decaling to tie them into this new parent company.

Morris produced a limited production run of 10 Series carts this year and is now taking orders for delivery in time for the 2025 seeding season.

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It came to pass much as predicted — but what made it happen was work in farm workshops, mostly in Saskatchewan where the need for zero till was the greatest. Openers were needed that would get seed and fertilizer into the soil with almost no soil disturbance.

One of the early ones out of the gate was Jim Halford at Indian Head. My late brother-in-law David Wilson helped with welding, et cetera. Even before air seeders they were modifying ordinary hoe drills with openers that were ridged and would seed straight into established grass. David showed me that system when we were there for a family visit.

By and by, Jim Halford’s Conserva Pak zero-till air seeder sported seed and fertilizer openers that would do the job with minimum soil disturbance. The Conserva Pak even found its way to Australia.

Members of the Beaujot family, from Langbank, brought the Seed Hawk and Seedmaster to market. The Seed Hawk unit would lift up a section when a headland came along, and this avoided overlap. It was built with a light frame and would fold up nicely for road travel, although the light iron meant that a welder had to be handy as the years rolled on.

My renter at the Dundurn farm uses an original Seed Hawk and it does a great job. You can see a photo from the 2022 crop here. His most recent canola field had seed spaced as if it had been placed by hand with tweezers and produced a very uniform crop.

The Bourgault family at St. Brieux and the Morris family at Yorkton developed two other Saskatchewan zero-till seeder companies.

Over time, almost all of the Saskatchewan farm family zero-till seeder manufacturers have been bought out by big companies such as John Deere in the U.S. and Vaderstad in Europe.

Blow dirt in the air in May is now a piece of history. To see that, one needs to visit a city construction site with bare soil that can drift.

The Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association (SSCA) had a big role in spreading the word about zero till. In June each year it held field days at farms with various models of seeders making passes to demonstrate what they could do. There were often so many half-ton trucks at those field days that parking was an issue.

Why Saskatchewan?

Manitoba mostly has adequate rain and grows big crops with big straw left behind, requiring special vertical-tillage implements to deal with the straw without plugging. Corn is a special challenge.

Alberta irrigates much of its dry area, but does need special attention in some dry areas that are not irrigated. The majority of cropland needing zero till, though, is in Saskatchewan.

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Not only can farmers kick the tires on a machine of interest — they can actually see how it performs compared to competitors. That definitely helps inspire confidence when making a buying decision.

This year the show again offered a look at the main choices farmers have in the equipment market. John Deere led off the demonstration with an 9R590 tractor paired with a P670 Precision Air Hoe Drill and C850 cart. Morris entered one of its Quantum air drills and 9-Series cart in the demonstration group.

A local Saskatchewan manufacturer, Pillar, brought a model of its double-shoot, single-pass disc hoe hybrid. Another Saskatchewan company, SeedMaster, was back again this year with a 6016-Ultra SR-750 that featured the UltraPro II metering system.

Vaderstad, a Sweden-based manufacturer that has taken over Saskatchewan-based manufacturer Seed Hawk, ran a Dakota 60 disc drill paired with a large capacity PD1000 air cart.

New Holland had its P2082 double shoot disc drill and P4950 cart. This is the first year the P2082 will include the brand’s Opt-Row automated downforce control.

Horsch demonstrated its single-row Avatar 60 MD low-disturbance single disc model.

— Scott Garvey is a machinery writer in Winnipeg.

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