FARGO, N.D. – Gauge wheels that plug with mud are a frustration when seeding into heavy, wet soils. The seeder loses depth accuracy, and frequent stops to clean the wheels wastes precious time.
That’s exactly the problem the Smith family at Hazel, South Dakota, has battled for two decades. Their response has been to design a gauge wheel that sheds the mud.
Jacob Smith of the MudSmith Gauge Wheel company says his family certainly didn’t start out to be inventors.
“We’re just farmers. Been farming a long time. We started no-till 20 years ago and we’ve had mud problems ever since,” said Smith.
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“We’re in the prairie pothole region. We’ve got those small, five-foot potholes all over. Farmers get sick of driving around them. In fact, you just cannot drive around them. So everyone just seeds straight through.”
The Smith family started strip till nine years ago, and that helped the gauge wheel problem somewhat, but it was not the total answer.
Once they started playing with holes in the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) rims, they saw they might solve the problem. They found that larger gaps in the rim allowed more mud to break free and fall off.
“We’ve been working on this for about nine years. We tried a bunch of different things with OEM rims. We tried cutting holes, but the rims were too weak, so they’d wobble. And any kind of welding or heat would warp the wheels.
“We finally scrapped everything we had tried and decided to design a gauge wheel from scratch, specifically for prairie pothole mud. And that’s what’s kept us moving in wet conditions.”
The MudSmith Gauge Wheel now being sold by the Smith family consists of a flat, laser-cut steel centre with a cast iron hub. It uses all OEM bearings, tires and mounts.
“There’s no modification required. The tire is the same John Deere tire they’ve been selling for 30 years.
“We have a two-piece rim that bolts together. It’s the same offset and same geometry as the OEM parts. The only difference is that it’s a spoked wheel with big openings for the mud.”
Smith said an added benefit is the ability to see through the spokes to see what’s happening on the other side of the wheel.
The family started off building four-spoke wheels and recently added three-spoke wheels to create more mud clearance.
They produce three different gauge wheels:
- A four-spoke, four-bolt wheel for a four-inch tire.
- A three-spoke, three-bolt wheel for a four-inch tire.
- A three-spoke, three-bolt wheel for a two-inch tire.
Prices are $150 to $165 US.
For more information, call 605-628-2122 or visit www.themudsmith.com.
