Agri-Trend CEO Rob Saik. (Jennifer Paige photo)

Trimble to buy consulting firm Agri-Trend

Reading Time: 3 minutes GPS and precision farming firm Trimble is set to buy the Canadian operator of North America’s largest network of independent agricultural consultants. Publicly traded, U.S.-based Trimble, which specializes in GPS and other location services, including the collection and management of on-farm data and services for precision farming, announced Tuesday it will buy Red Deer-based, privately-held […] Read more

NORAC’s boom height control systems are already compatible with several Topcon products. (TopconPositioning.com)

GPS firm buys sprayer boom control maker NORAC

Reading Time: 2 minutes Saskatoon tech firm NORAC Systems, best known today for its automated boom height control systems for field sprayers, is set to become part of a major U.S. GPS systems firm. California-based Topcon Positioning Group announced Wednesday it will buy NORAC for an undisclosed sum, as the latest of Topcon’s recent plays in the precision ag […] Read more


overhead view from a farm drone

The farm drones are getting closer

Airframe, camera and computer technologies are rapidly evolving in favour of farmer applications

Reading Time: 5 minutes The next revolution in farming isn’t about chemistry or genetics. It’s about scouting, and the good news is that the enabling technology has come several giant steps closer in just the last two years, thanks to unmanned aerial vehicles (popularly called UAVs or drones) which offer a visual platform for scientific crop monitoring. Drones are […] Read more

Kinze grain cart

Here come the farm robots

Robotic tractors are already in advanced field tests, and the results are producing great optimism

Reading Time: 5 minutes Phil Jennings of Kinze Manufacturing gets a big kick out of riding in their modified tractor when it’s hauling one of their grain carts during a real Iowa harvest. When the call goes out for the cart, the tractor starts chugging across the field to where the combine is working. Jennings just sits there and […] Read more