Four Patents and a Screw On Ring: How Allan Jung Built a Product Line for Planter Gauge Wheels

IPSWICH, S.D. Search the U.S. patent records for Allan F. Jung and the same title comes up four times: "Combined depth gauge wheel and scraper for a planter." The first of those patents was granted in May 2022 and the most recent in April 2024. Each one is assigned to Jung Enterprise, Inc., the company he founded in 2021 to make and sell the idea.

The four grants are U.S. Patent No. 11,330,759, issued on May 17, 2022; No. 11,528,838, issued on December 20, 2022; No. 11,707,013, issued on July 25, 2023; and No. 11,968,921, issued on April 30, 2024. His company also lists a second invention, a gauge wheel and closing wheel retainer, with an application filed in May 2022.

The problem behind the patents was one he lived with for decades. Mr. Jung spent 29 years, from 1992 to 2021, as a custom planter in South Dakota. In wet ground, mud packed into the spoked gauge wheels that control seed depth, the wheels plugged and the planter sat idle while someone cleaned them. He sketched the first version of a fix within days, then spent much longer making it simple enough for any farmer to use.

The finished product is a steel ring that fits over the edge of the gauge wheel tire. It protects the lip of the tire from wear, keeps mud and debris from plugging the wheel and, in dry soil, slows premature wear. Because a scraper is built into the ring, growers do not need to buy a separate one. It fits planters, air seeders and no till drills.

Early rings had to be welded on. After hearing from customers and watching the ring work in the field, he redesigned it to fasten to the tire with screws, which made installation far quicker. The change helped the product take off.

Over time the ring became the anchor of a small product family. Jung Enterprise now also sells a wheel retainer that keeps the gauge wheel from slipping off a planter or air seeder and holds it in alignment in rough conditions, along with curved spoked gauge wheels built to hold a consistent planting depth so seeds emerge evenly.

His sales record grew out of the ring itself. Farmers who had fitted the steel ring kept asking whether he sold spoke gauge wheels as well, so Mr. Jung arranged to sell them and became that company's number one seller. Talking with farmers every day showed him where existing parts fell short, and today he supplies the gauge wheels himself, keeping prices competitive and still selling thousands of them every year.

Growth did not come overnight. He spent two and a half years marketing directly to growers and working the farm show circuit before sales picked up. Since then, thousands of units have been sold through a number of companies, and customers now reach Jung Enterprise from across the United States, Canada and Central America, many of them sent by other farmers.

Running the business is still hands on. Mr. Jung updates equipment for customers, staffs booths at farm shows, answers calls and orders, runs the company's social media advertising and keeps an eye on seasonal swings in demand. At planting and harvest he is often in the field helping customers directly.

He sums up his approach simply: find a need nobody is meeting and answer it with something practical and affordable. His next goals are to widen national and international sales and to work with larger agricultural equipment manufacturers so the ring reaches more farms.

Dynamo Times recognizes Allan Jung for turning a planting season problem into a patented product line that saves growers time, labor and money.