Shallow seismic reflection surveys require dense spatial wave-field sampling, contributing to their high cost. To assess the feasibility of planting geophones automatically, we planted 72 geophones in approximately 2 s in a test line, using an 11-m-wide farm tillage tool as a planting device. Geophones were attached rigidly, at 15 cm intervals, to five pieces of heavy-duty channel iron bolted to the tillage-tool frame. Conventional comparison-line data collected about 75 cm away, parallel to the test line, were visually comparable with the seismic source 12 m distant. When the sources were placed 1 m from the geophones, a surface-wave mode was excited by the channel iron and detected by geophones in both lines. This mode exhibited a different phase velocity than that of the desired seismic body-waves and could be attenuated by frequency-wavenumber filtering. These results suggest that automatic geophone placement is feasible and could decrease shallow seismic surveying costs. ¿ 1999 American Geophysical Union