I would urge caution about just going across the board to the narrower (2.75"?) row unit gage wheels from the standard 4".

The narrower gage wheels have been around for many years. Kinze has had them as an option also. They are obviously a bit less expensive to produce than a 4" wide wheel.

If they worked all that well in the majority of conditions they would have been made standard many years ago.

There are many if not most field condtions which require the floatation of the 4" gage wheels at least in some places of the field.  The dilemma is that soils and fields are not uniform. You need more floatation in some areas and not so much in others.

We need to apply enough row unit down pressure air or pneumatic pressure to make sure we are on the seed depth stops on the hard spots but enough floatation from the gage wheels to make sure we don't bury the row unit in a soft, wet draw some place.

There is just no one answer to most planter questions, certainly not in the matter of narrow gage wheels.  jmho.

One of the problems we have in many areas of agriculture and life is that we tend to have short memories.  We always think next season will be that perfect spring.

I would recommend you try to recall the issues you ran into this past spring and focus on addressing those if you are looking at a new planter.

Frankly, we have had many discussions on this board and elsewhere that seed spacing, while nice to have perfect, is NOT one of the key determinants of yield, within reason of course. Seed spacing from any of the manufacturers SHOULD be fairly good as we head into the year 2010.

What has a much larger effect on yield and therefore net profit is seed depth control and uniformity of seed depth. Seed to soil contact, or lack of in some conditions is also a key planter related function.  These two planter related items are what give us uniform quick emergence and early growth. Our choice of planter selection and setup criteria can have a big effect on these two seeding criteria.

Jim at Dawn