It’s an established fact that seeding depth and plant spacing are critical factors in maximizing yields and uniformity in some crops. That’s why corn and soybeans are planted with planters designed to singulate each seed and place it at a precise depth. Wheat isn’t generally — or ever — seeded with a planter, but as… Read more »
Category: Machinery
GPS beacon tracks equipment activity, and maps where bales are dropped
Using technology from a sensor made by Fliegl, Austrian farm machinery company Pöttinger has debuted a GPS beacon designed to track the location of pulled farm implements, detect whether or not they are working, and even save maps of their progress. The technology in the PötPro Guide is surprisingly basic. GPS and 3D sensors inside the small… Read more »
Canadian equipment sales lower in first four months of 2018
There was an expectation that U.S. sales of farm machinery would improve in 2018 but not necessarily that Canadian sales would be weaker. Yet, according to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers’ (AEM) flash report for April, Canadian sales of tractors and combines have been weaker this year than last. Note: the numbers are based on… Read more »
TechTour: Culti Cam system offers automatic cultivator positioning in row crops
In another move towards automation, Claas has unveiled a system for automatic steering of cultivators in row crops. The Culti Cam uses a high-resolution camera to detect rows, and then adjusts the position of the implement, centring it between rows, independent from the tractor’s steering. Using colour and 3D surface information, Claas says the camera software… Read more »
Farmers Edge looks to appeal U.S. court decision dismissing claims against Farmobile
Manitoba-based Farmers Edge says it believes there are grounds for an appeal after a U.S. court dismissed the company’s claims in a trade secrets-related lawsuit against Kansas-based Farmobile last week. A U.S. District Court judge in Nebraska issued a summary judgment on Thursday in the legal dispute over who owns the right to technology used… Read more »
Wheat School: Which is the best streamer nozzle?
What’s the best choice of streamer nozzle? It’s a question RealAgriculture agronomist Peter Johnson is asked countless times every year. Well, here’s the answer. In this episode of the RealAgriculture Wheat School, WheatPete puts on his suit and gloves and heads to the field to show us how three-stream, five-stream and seven-stream nozzles compare. He also… Read more »
Canadians paying for pipeline constraints at the pump, says fuel market analyst
The last time gasoline prices across Canada were where they are today, averaging around $1.33/litre, was in July 2014, when the price of oil was around US$100 a barrel. Oil prices have been trending higher since last summer, but are still $30 below where they were in July 2014. So why are fuel prices so… Read more »
Farmers Edge highlights R&D roadmap through 2019
Improved access to technology and sensors for tracking the weather, machinery, and crop development are helping farmers and agronomists with crop management decisions. “The ability to gather and integrate detailed information from growers’ fields, coupled with advances in weather forecasting, rapid processing, predictive modeling, and machine learning, is changing farming from a business that often… Read more »
TechTour: Automatically adjusting spread patterns for wind, terrain, and fertilizer type
Spreading fertilizer can feel like a bit of a guessing game when it comes to knowing just how wide of a spray pattern is produced. Coverage depends on the type of fertilizer in the hopper, the terrain, and also, how much wind impacts the spray pattern. But Amazone claims it offers solutions to each of… Read more »
Soil sensor designed for real-time changes to seeding rates and depths
German farm equipment company Köckerling, together with Austria-based Geoprospectors, have paired their technology to build seeding equipment designed to automatically account for variable soil conditions. The Geoprospectors’ Top Soil Mapper, which is mounted on the front of a tractor (and profiled here), scans the soil and measures three main parameters from above ground: soil moisture,… Read more »
Canola School: Lessons learned about weed seed destruction machines
With increasing cases of herbicide resistance, machines designed to destroy weed seeds at harvest could be a valuable tool. But like any technology that is not yet widely adopted, there are also some lessons to be learned and challenges to overcome, as researchers with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada confirmed last year. 2017 marked the first… Read more »
Elmer’s Manufacturing acquiring maker of Wolverine rotary ditcher
Farm equipment maker Elmer’s Manufacturing has announced a deal to acquire another southern Manitoba-based manufacturer, adding rotary ditching equipment to the Elmer’s product lineup. Elmer’s has reached an agreement to acquire 100 percent of Dynamic Ditchers Inc., the makers of the Wolverine Extreme Rotary Ditcher. Production will be moved from Dynamic’s location near Dugald, Man…. Read more »
Kiwi milking parlours come to Canada
Look for more Canadian milk to be passing though Kiwi-made milking parlours in the years ahead. That’s according to New Zealand-based Waikato Milking Systems’ CEO Dean Bell, who brought his company to Stratford, ON, this month to exhibit for the first time at the Canadian Dairy XPO. The New Zealand dairy industry currently supplies one-third of… Read more »
Kubota plans new head office and warehouse build in Ontario
Kubota Canada Ltd. is moving to a new facility located in Pickering, Ontario, which should be completed by the end of 2019. A new 565,000 square-foot facility will house the company’s Canadian head office and warehouse, a move away from the Markham, ON, location it has operated out of since 1975. The $67 million investment… Read more »
Is this the cab of the future?
13 companies that supply equipment manufacturers with components for their cabs have partnered on a project in Europe to develop what they see as the cab of the future. The CAB Concept Cluster unveiled its “Smart Cab” and caught the attention of machinery engineers at Agritechnica in Hanover, Germany, back in November. A multifunctional cabin… Read more »