Abstract: Abstract: The soil coverer and the press wheel are the main parts of the corn planter, and their performances are directly related to the growth and the output of the corn. The operation of soil compaction immediately after the soil covering can improve the soil moisture content and reduce soil evaporation. The application of elastic material in the press device also has a positive effect on solving the phenomenon of soil adhesion during the operation of seeding. In order to improve the performances of seeding and soil compaction of the corn planter under conservation tillage, an elastic press wheel with the function of covering soil was designed through the combination of the deformation theory of rubber material and the tire mechanics to solve soil covering and soil compaction simultaneously after corn planting. The force of contact unit during the operation process of press wheel was analyzed, a theoretical model of the press wheel was built up based on shape characteristics of furrows, and an elastic press wheel with a double-cavity structure was presented. Depending on the extrusion force caused by the contact between the lateral edge of press wheel and furrows realize the functions of soil covering and soil compaction simultaneously. The structural parameters of the elastic press wheel with the material of styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) was determined through the analysis of the theoretical mode as follows: the diameter, the width and the thickness of the press wheel were 500, 180 and 8 mm, respectively; the width of cross section of single-cavity of the press wheel was 70 mm, the cross section of single-cavity of the press wheel was composed with the curvature radius of the lateral edge of the press wheel respectively ρ1, ρ2 and ρ3, which were 30, 135 and 60 mm separately; the internal pressure of the press wheel was 500 Pa, and the external load during working was 475 N. The theoretical model was confirmed by the finite element simulation based on ABAQUS through analyzing the stress, strain and displacement of soil, contact area and vertical contact force. The simulation results showed that the elastic press wheel could realize these objectives of soil covering and soil compaction with less disturbance of the soil and better working stability. A field experiment was conducted to validate the theoretical model and the elastic press wheel's functions of soil covering and soil compaction, and the results showed that the soil covering depth of seed after compacting operation was 34 mm, the coefficient of variation of the seed's soil covering depth after compacting operation was 15.68%, the soil compactness was 33.54 KPa in the top 50 mm soil layer of the seed furrow, and the coefficient of variation was 13.97%, which indicated that the elastic press wheel would work effectively in the functions of soil covering and soil compaction. An additional comparative experiment was carried out between the elastic press wheel presented in the paper and the double-disc coverer and rubber press wheel widely used in precision planter, and the desired soil covering depth of seed was both obtained in the corn planting, but the corn planter equipped with elastic press wheel worked more effectively in the functions of soil compaction, and our result indicated that the corn planter equipped with elastic press wheel could also result in good performances on the stability of soil covering and soil compaction. Therefore, this method and the theoretical model are demonstrated to be practical and feasible, and the elastic press wheel presented in the paper can achieve the expected target of the soil covering and soil compaction with good performance of working stability.