Bruce,

I think you would find that on our latest version of the Curvetine, the Curvetine wheel itself is now a USA-mfg forging, with a separate Timken bearing hub.  Going to separate forged wheel and hub, rather than the original one piece cast wheel and hub, enabled us to change the Curvetine wheel in a way that greatly reduces snagging rootballs. 

In addition the forged wheel lasts longer than the older cast version. And when the Curvetine wheel does need to be replaced, usually the regreaseable tapered roller bearing hub is still ok so you just unbolt and change the wheel, not the hub.

Here is a photo I took at a planter meeting today of an interesting and successful one-pass planter setup very common in this area of SW WI.

I usually like two Curvetines per row. However this planter applies dry fertilizer through the JD single disc opener up front so the soil is fertilized, cleared and worked on the far side of this row. The customer uses a solid rubber tire closing wheel on the fertilizer coulter side and our latest Curvetine on the undisturbed side of the seed. Joe's two per row video above shows a very nice job of closing the seed slot at the bottom without disturbing the seed. It also shows a pock marked surface which will not likely crust over even after a rain but will leave cracks between the pockmarks for delicate seedlings to emerge.

I am also personally not a fan of a drag chains particularly in our heavy clay soils but this customer likes the action when he is no tilling beans. I would suspect he takes the chains off when planting corn.  Chains can leave too smooth a surface which is prone to crusting. In any case this is a very successful setup on planters with dry fertilizer. Planting beans no till into corn this customer may want to pull some corn residue back over the top of his well-planted, uniform depth, no entrained residue beans.

On larger planters without fertilizer on the planter, folks around here usually use the 1572 coulter combo as pictured up front with 2 Curvetines per row on back and no drag chain in a variety of tillage systems. Two Curvetines works well even in worked ground (as mentioned earlier in this thread), you just run the closer spring pressure in the lightest position or use the JD "half-rate" tail piece spring in lighter soil.

Jim at Dawn

(IMG023 A very common and successful one pass planter setup for clay soils in SW WI 030717.jpg)

IMG023 A very common and successful one pass planter setup for clay soils in SW WI 030717.jpg (97KB - 288 downloads)