Reading Time: 8 minutes In the last two or three decades, farmers have been offered a dizzying array of new features on ag equipment. There’s more power, more capacity, auto guidance, the list goes on. Yet now, looking to the future, it will be even more crucial to make the best possible purchase decisions and to integrate your technology […] Read more
Machines vs. climate
Shrewd machinery purchases have always been essential on the farm, but not like this. Emerging technologies mean huge potential payoffs for getting it right, and even bigger penalties if you don’t. Think precision farming. Think surviving climate change
Time to hit ‘Print’ for that machinery part?
How about using your 3D printer to reproduce broken machinery parts? That capability is already here, and it’s getting better all the time
Reading Time: 4 minutes First, let’s get the name right. Until now, we’ve been calling it 3D printing. It’s a name that will probably stick around for a while, but those in the know are already calling it by its newer name, “additive manufacturing.” “The technology is far, far more user friendly and there are really good desktop printers […] Read more
Options for monitoring grain bins
3D imaging and CO2 detection are offered as options for monitoring temperature and moisture
Reading Time: 4 minutes Bin monitoring has come a long way since probes on sticks and necessarily so — as the size of grain bins has grown, so has the value of their contents. One 10,000-bushel bin can surpass $100,000. Everyone has heard horror stories of entire bins ruined, but Joy Agnew, associate vice-president of applied research for Olds […] Read more
The move to electric accelerates
When you talk about electric drive for farm machinery, don’t say “if.” It’s “soon”
Reading Time: 6 minutes When General Motors chairman and CEO, Mary Bara, made her presentation to an online audience during the Consumer Electronics Show in January, what she had to reveal was worth listening to, to say the least. GM, an automotive brand that has been building vehicles with internal combustion engines for over 100 years, is committing to […] Read more
Farm automation likely adopted in high-value crops first
Ontario crop service company creates agriculture robotic division
Reading Time: 2 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – The growing number of new crop automation products coming to market are finding their first uses in high-value crops, like vegetables or grapes. Several farm robots featured at the recent AgRobotics and Automation event hosted by the RH Accelerator focused on higher-value crops instead of corn, soybeans or wheat. The interest is […] Read more
Analyzing the ROI on precision investment
Farmers from different areas discuss their results with the seeding and fertilizer system
Reading Time: 4 minutes Can precision technology pay? Farmers participating in a panel discussion at last December’s Virtual Precision Agriculture Conference say yes. However, strategies differ. Clinton Monchuk of Monchuk Farms near Lanigan, Sask., is also executive director of Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan, and he says the precision techniques used on his farm are all chosen to improve […] Read more
Getting back to reality after COVID-19
Will farm shows and machinery events ever be the same again?
Reading Time: 6 minutes In my time as machinery editor, getting to publicity events held by equipment brands has meant spending a lot of time in hotels and on airplanes. My schedule saw me, on average, flying somewhere every six weeks, and you get to experience a lot of unusual things that way, like when a flight attendant on […] Read more
A nozzle approach to spray coverage
Design of this 3D sprayer nozzle began in the U.K. and now has a global reach
Reading Time: 6 minutes Although they’re essential on today’s commercial farms, sprayers typically rank third in importance behind seeding equipment and combines, and maybe that’s fair considering the importance of how the crop starts and how it finishes. Still, there’s no denying that the jobs you do with your sprayer are taking on new importance. Just think herbicide-resistant weeds, […] Read more
The green path forward in farm machinery
Deere’s autonomy manager talks strategy for a technology-driven future
Reading Time: 7 minutes A couple of years ago I was walking through the John Deere Pavilion in Moline, Illinois, when I noticed, parked on its own in its own corner, something I hadn’t seen in a good long time. It was the first autonomous concept tractor the green brand had ever shown to the public. Streamlined, roughly 60 […] Read more
Control, and revenue too
The co-op aims to put farmers in total control of their data, and the income it earns
Reading Time: 8 minutes A generation ago, farmers first got introduced to GPS yield monitors and the way they could document everything that passed through their combines. From that very first exposure, it seemed inevitable the technology would prove a stepping stone to enhanced on-farm management of crops, inputs and soil health. It didn’t happen overnight, of course, but […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
