Larry Hak is an Ohio crop farmer "who’s always looking for a way to maximize machinery" use on the farm. “A few years ago it really bugged me that I needed an expensive piece of machinery to plant small grains and another one to plant corn and soybeans,” Hak says. “One day I came up with a design for solid seed plates so I could plant wheat and other small grains with my corn planter.” 

     Hak figured out a formula for planting various crops with his plates by planting different size seeds in his fields over a carefully measured distance. “I weighed the seed before planting and weighed the amount left after I planted one acre,” Hak says. “I knew the number of seeds per pound and came up with a formula that matches what Kinze has in its planter manuals. Anyone can figure out the correct amount to plant if they know the approximate number of seeds per pound and can change transmission sprockets on their planter,” Hak says. 
     Another great application for plates is planting ground cover crops. Hak says, “We’ve come up with a way to accurately plant one type of cover crop seed in the front boxes and different seeds in the rear boxes.” (From: Http://www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?aide=27656 on April 8, 2019.)

      Now moving ahead a few years in late 2018, Larry Hak decided to start Sprouting Our Important Legacy LLC (S.O.I.L.).  Larry and his wife Lynne work together on this venture. Larry's experience in the past with planting plate development led to starting the new company. Together they are planning to help crop producers increase the crop production while protecting the vitality of the land. In the long run the plan is to increase the bottom line of the crop producers, sales agents, and S.O.I.L.