Pat,

On equalizers - If you have row cleaners on a 7200 and run them so they scoot most all residue, cobs, clods etc to the side then I do not think there will be enough return to the cost of adding the equalizers.

On fixed (to the row unit but adjustable relative to the bottom of the vee opener) row cleaners vs floating row cleaners here is my opinion - (keep in mind we sell both screw adjust/fixed and floating both with and without a coulter so this is my opinion, as you asked for, not a sales pitch for one or the other)

Floating row cleaners (without a coulter) are mostly useful if you are 50/50 corn and beans and ALWAYS plant your corn no-till into finely chopped and uniformly spread bean stubble. This gives you a consistent firm surface with no long tough residue to deal with. I know some use them in corn either worked or no till but it is tough to make anything that floats heavy enough so it clears corn root balls and stones without floating over them yet light enough so it does not gouge in a wet spot or lighter soils. We add depth bands, weights springs etc etc....

In the end I prefer a row cleaner which is easily adjustable but fixed height - where the depth of the teeth on the row cleaner relative to the bottom of the vee opener (=seed) is controlled as yours are. I also prefer to have the row cleaners back just as close to the gage wheels as possible for best seed depth control. I would stick with your non-floating "fixed" row cleaners. Even if you are 50/50 and notill all your corn, I don't think it would be worth the cost to change over to floating.

Mr Ferrie claims a big "yield advantage" in a magazine article for floating over fixed. Personally I think in a comparison like that a knowledgeable person can produce about any result desired based on selected conditions and how the wheels were set.

Reminds me a lot of how two competitors' row cleaners had about an "eight bu/a advantage" over ours in a similar magazine expose years ago - I investigated and found that the "test" was run on a 12 row planter, ours were the center four rows with a tractor tire on one or both sides of every row while the two competitors products were the outside four rows on each end - totally away from tractor and other traffic during the planting and growing season....Oh yes, and another similar "test" and nation-wide magazine article by Mr Ferrie shows that two wedge type 21 lb each cast iron closing wheels per row is the "best" planter closing system... I do agree with Ken that consistency is very important. The statistics and broad applicability throughout the cornbelt of these magazine "tests" however are somewhat open to discussion, in my opinion.

That said, if you were going to add anything to your JD 7200 in addition to the row cleaners, I would add, to start, one of our new Curvetine XR closing wheels to the tailpiece. Here are two photos, one with one per row one with two per row plus a picture of closing the slot in heavy wet clay, std rubber tire on top, Curvetine on the bottom.

This will eliminate any sidewall compaction on at least one side of the row. You don't say what you are planting into but we have improved the previous Curvetine especially for more corn on corn. One way to check it out would be to run one outside row with one of these XR wheels and the other outside row with two. I think these would have a good chance of a positive return on investment very quickly depending on conditions. jmho.

Jim at Dawn

(Dawn Curvetine XR with std rubber tire one side.jpg)

(Dawn Curvetine XR two per row on JD XP tailpiece.jpg)

(5AFTER CURVETINE ONE SIDE WI HEAVY CLAY.JPG)

Dawn Curvetine XR with std rubber tire one side.jpg (36KB - 143 downloads)

Dawn Curvetine XR two per row on JD XP tailpiece.jpg (41KB - 161 downloads)

5AFTER CURVETINE ONE SIDE WI HEAVY CLAY.JPG (41KB - 159 downloads)