I have used the Mohawk closing wheels, and more recently added some Zipper wheels, for several seasons now in both no-till and tilled ground, and have planted corn, soybeans, and milo with good results. I like how the wheels still maintain the same depth of penetration even if I’m a little too heavy on the down pressure. No flipping chunks of soil and seed out.
In watching the planter run this spring, it seems like the Zipper wheel might have a little faster “sewing” action than the Mohawk, meaning when the soil was a little heavy or no tilling into fall killed sod, the Zipper rows seemed to have a little more fluff to them.
In normal no tilling situations, both wheels performed great.
An advantage for the Mohawk is if your planter closing wheels are in good shape, you swap the rubber tire for the Mohawk and you’re ready to go at an attractive cost.
I don’t see how anybody can go wrong with either wheel.
Last year we ran our Kinze 3600 16/32 planter with Mohawk closing wheels over nearly 2000 acres of no-till soybeans. We saw a real improvement over cast iron wheels in performance – closing the seed trench, preventing the slot from opening when the soil dried out, and in seed emergence.
We used my Kinze 3800 corn planter for some trials on tilled and no-till fields; rubber tires, Mohawks, Zippers, Thompson wheels, and Martin spike closers.
While the Martin spikes have always performed fairly well in no-till, and still performed the best in planting no-till corn into a dry June hayfield, the Mohawks and Zippers performed best overall. They handled tilled soil, they handled no-till, they firmed the seed while leaving loose soil above it, and they didn’t tip out seed in the most challenging conditions. The Zippers also did fairly well in the hard dry hay field in June.
The Mohawks and Zippers still look almost new, they should last many years more than the plastic spikes some companies sell. We will be all Mohawks and Zippers this year.
