Brian,

The tined closing wheels break up the ground and somewhat incorporate the fertilizer, I am told. As Chad points out, it does seem to work wonders in beans, esp in some soils. I agree with you, I would not drop fertilizer ahead of a standard rubber tire w/sealed ball bearings or you may have a mess.

If you are using your planter for corn and beans and it is already set up for starter for corn, why not just put a little down for beans too? The planter pictured has Totally Tubular tubes for infurrow on corn and the ones shown for beans. The customer just moves his supply tube from one down tube to the other when switching from corn to beans. I thought this was a pretty neat setup.

As far as closing wheel bearings go, with any type of in furrow fertilizer, we are suggesting that you leave the zerk in the cap (rather than removing it as we do on our Trashwheels and coulters) and pump a couple shots of grease thru every few days.

For those with Curvetines, it is recommended to pump enough grease until you see it coming out around the seal. You will help, not hurt, this purging-type of seal.

Jim at Dawn