Why Retrofit RYAN NT Double Discs to your Seed Hawk?
Farmer from Pinnaroo SA planting with the RYAN NT Retrofit Seed Hawk Double Discs.
Your Seed Hawk isn't the problem
We get calls from growers who know they've got a good machine, but are still climbing out of the cab to pull trash off their point.
The Seed Hawk is a properly good air seeder. It's been built at Langbank in Saskatchewan since 1992, and Väderstad still builds it there today. The independent tine coulters follow the ground individually, maintaining consistent seed depth over uneven terrain. The 40-84 offers 46cm of contour-following range. Sectional control shuts product off over ground you've already seeded, cutting overlap and input costs.
None of those features is what stops you in a paddock in thick stubble.
What stops you is what's on the bottom of your ground engaging tool. Where steel meets dirt. And that's the only part of your machine we want to change.
You've already bought the expensive part
When a grower gets a quote for a new disc machine, it can hurt.
Have a think about what that quote gets you. A frame, metering system, hydraulics, hoses and maybe a seed box. And most importantly, a set of tyne trips and ground-engaging tools.
The key thread here is that you probably already own all of it except the discs. You bought it when you bought the Seed Hawk, and the frame and its attachments have nothing wrong with them. The only part of the machine giving you grief is the point system in the ground, the cheapest part of it.
Buying a new disc bar means paying a second time for gear you already own. So what if you could convert your point system to discs instead?
Our Seed Hawk retrofit swaps the seeding point over to discs with a couple of bolts, and leaves the rest of the machine sitting exactly where it is. Same frame, same hoses, same metering system, same tyne trips, and your front soil-disrupting tyne stays right where it is. You keep everything you paid for and liked, and you change the bit you didn't.
Paul Ryan has spent more than 40 years underneath other people's machines working out how to make discs fit gear that was never drawn up for them. Our system suits just about anything built in the last 30 years, with models to suit Flexi-Coil, Gason, Bourgault, Morris, Ausplow DBS, John Deere and a long list of others. Seed Hawk is on that list.
What the discs do down there
Most retrofit discs on the market are 15 or 16 inches. The Seed Hawk double discs we build are 18 inch (450mm), 4mm thick, hardened cast steel, four kilos each. Diameter earns its keep. A bigger disc wears slower, cuts trash more cleanly, and rolls over material like big stones and rocks.
The part that matters most is how the two discs sit against each other. Most double disc systems run the coulters side by side, which can reduce cutting ability as there's no lead disc to keep it turning.
Our discs are offset. The serrated lead disc runs 25mm ahead of the plain one and it's the driving disc on the ground, so the pair cut and tear. Working angle is 15 degrees.
That offset is the reason you don't get hairpinning in the furrow, or trash wrapped around your tyne. Hairpinning is when the disc shoves stubble down into the slot rather than cutting through it, and your seed can finish up lying on top of it instead of sitting in soil. Our serrated lead disc slices through the stubble instead, as the seed is planted.
A front seed boot puts your seed at the bottom of the trench, and it's placed at the front of the system so it doesn't block up. Spring-loaded scrapers keep the mud off.
Going deeper: 30mm axles, Timken tapered bearings, two to a hub with a rubber seal on the inside and one grease nipple sitting between them. Give them their first service at 100 to 200 hours, or after the first decent rain past 100 hours. Once a year after that.
Growers running our discs report getting their crop in up to 30 per cent faster on up to 50 per cent less fuel. On average you'll pull them with around half the horsepower a tyne machine wants, though soil type, how the machine's set up and what you're chasing will all move that number about.
And you can switch back to the original
If discs aren't suiting a particular paddock, you can put the machine back to its old tyne system with minimal time and a couple of bolts.
You now have two machines in one. If the season throws a curve ball and you want your old setup back for a bit, you can do that in a matter of hours.
Our gear was built around growers changing their minds, because conditions can change. The reality is plenty of blokes fit our system and never look back.
Talk to us about your machine
If you've got a Seed Hawk and you're sick of climbing down to clear trash off it, get in touch with us. Tell us the model, the spacing, what you're planting into and what country you're in. We'll tell you what fits, and if it's not a fit for your setup we'll tell you that too.
Call RYAN NT on 1800 792 668, or fill in the form on our Retrofit Double Discs page and we'll come back to you within 24 hours. We've also got six months interest-free finance if you want to make sure you get a set, as they're selling fast. And if you'd rather put your hands on one first, we're out on the 2026 field days circuit.