The way i figure it, the spring rate only impacts how the weight (down pressure) is distributed amongst the row units when there is variation in elevation or ease of ground penetration.
On a perfectly flat field with completely consistent soil density and no residue to penetrate, spring preload has zero impact. In theory, you could have a solid rod or very soft springs and its still going to have the same down pressure because the weight is distributed evenly amongst the rows when there is no variance row to row in ground condition.
In the very simplified diagram below, when the one row hits that rock, the springs will compress and push up on the tool bar. Doing so will reduce the down pressure (weight) available to all of the other rows. They will all then have less than 133# of down pressure available. If the preload on the spring is 180# vs 90#, the forces that the one row pushes up on the tool bar with are going to be higher (twice as much?) which reduces down pressure available to the other rows by that much more. Say the spring preload was 1200# (for illustration purposes), that one row would eat up all the down pressure available to the entire drill and the only down force on other rows would be the row unit weight hanging to the ground.
Increasing the spring rates might make the openers cut deeper in SOME rows, it does so at the expense of how deep it would cut in others. If the rows units are struggling to get to a certain depth across the width of the drill, the only way to increase down pressure to all of them is to add more weight.
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