Home-Built Closing Wheels Improve Seed Stands

Home-Built Closing Wheels Improve Seed Stands DRILLS After spending 5 years perfecting a special vertical tillage implement for their Ohio farms Gerald Milo and his son decided they could also improve the closing wheels on their no-till drill They’d looked at several aftermarket products and thought their idea was just as good if not better and would definitely cost less than buying Using emergence and final stand counts following spring tillage they developed a different type of closing wheel “One day I pulled in the shed with the drill after planting 20 acres and said to myself ‘there’s no way I’m going in the field again using this press wheel’ ” says Milo The father/son duo designed a new cogged type press wheel with 1-in fingers They tested the wheel and were impressed with the results “The cog wheel design makes alternating firm and soft depressions behind the seed tube so the young seedlings can pop through the surface and still have a firm seedbed to support strong roots ” Milo says “The cast iron wheels also act as a depth gauge for the seed tube so there’s uniform seed placement ” Milo says in their on-farm experience the cog wheels increase emergence rates for soybeans and small grains “Emergence is the key to a good stand and for $50 a wheel it seems to be a good investment ” he says Milo and his son manufacture the Mix and Till VT implement and the cog closing wheels at their farm Contact: FARM SHOW Followup S and M Farms 160 South Newton Falls Rd North Jackson Ohio 44451 ph 330 719-6106; www sandmfarms com; Miloghomes@cs com

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