I have never counted a stand. What emergence should I put in?

Use the number the page fills in for the crop, then change it for the seedbed in front of you. Drop it five to ten points for a dry or lumpy seedbed, seeding deeper than you want to, cold soil, heavy residue, or seed-placed fertiliser close to the seed. Add a few points for warm moist soil and a well levelled field.

Then settle it this spring. Count the plants over ten feet of one row three weeks after seeding, put the count into the stand check, and the page hands back the emergence your drill actually achieved. Carry that number into next year and the rate stops being an estimate.

Same crop, same target, and the rate came out higher than last year. Why?

The seed got bigger. Rate follows the weight of a thousand seeds almost exactly, and that weight swings from lot to lot with the season the seed was grown in. Wheat arrives anywhere from 26 to 46 grams, red lentils from 28 to 48, canola from 3.5 to 7.

A drill set once at 1.5 bushels of seed an acre is really a rate that moves with the bag. At 30 grams that bushel and a half of seed puts about 26 plants on a square foot; at 42 grams the same weight puts about 19 there. The chart on the page shows the swing for the crop you picked.

I moved to wider rows. Does the seeding rate change?

Not the rate. Pounds per acre covers an acre however you cut it into rows, so the target stand and the rate stay where they are.

What changes is how crowded the row is. Every seed for that square foot now goes into fewer inches of furrow, so seeds per foot of row rises and the spacing between them tightens. The page shows both. Watch the spacing figure when you widen rows or narrow the opener: once neighbours sit close enough to compete for the same moisture and fertiliser band, the answer is usually to lift the target stand a little on the good ground rather than to change the arithmetic.

On a hilltop that always runs light, do I seed more or less?

Both are defensible and they answer different problems, which is why the page carries a switch rather than a rule.

Seed less on thin ground when the ground is thin because of moisture. There is only so much water on that knoll, more plants compete for it, and the seed is cheaper in your shed than on the hill. Seed more on thin ground when the ground is thin because the stand fails there: shallow topsoil, crusting, eroded knolls that dry out before the seed chits. There you are buying back the plants you know you will lose.

Look at last year's harvest map over that knoll. If it yielded low with a full stand, take the rate off. If it yielded low with gaps in it, put the rate on.

How do I get a different rate on each part of the field?

You need two things: the rate per band, which the page gives you, and a map of where the bands are, which comes from the field's own history.

In GeoPard that map is built from layers you already have: several years of satellite growth to find the ground that consistently carries more, elevation with slope and curvature to find the knolls and the draws, harvest maps, and soil tests. The equation on the page reads that productivity index, applies the same target adjustments you set here, and writes a rate for every point in the field. Export it in the format your terminal reads and the drill changes rate on the move.