With the ADD Board we stressed the importance of a complete direct seeding system, which starts at the combine with straw and chaff spreading. Having chemfallowed in the 1980's I was quite comfortable with relying on chemicals for weed control. The first air seeder we bought was a JD 610 tool with a single shoot hoe opener. This was a simple machine with very little soil disturbance, which made the introduction to direct seeding easy. We fertilize at the soil test lab's recommendation, which is about 50 lbs. of actual N and 10 to 15 lbs. of P for cereal crops.
Fertilizer is placed below and to the side of the seed.
Single shoot and double shoot have both their good and bad points. Seedbed soundness is the biggest issue I have with double shooting. Machinery costs in a direct seeding system have always been a concern. A four wheel drive tractor and air seeder, putting on 300 total tractor hours per year and a two wheel drive tractor on the sprayer is our way of keeping costs down. With a burnoff pass in the spring and a one pass seeding system, fuel bills are kept under control.