Steel prices in North America are on the rise and the impacts are just beginning to be felt in farm country. In the U.S., steel prices were already up 37% year to date and expected to go higher with the imposition of 25% import tariffs on steel from Canada and Mexico. According to the Financial…Read More
Category: Machinery
Deere & Co says it has filed legal action against Precision Planting and AGCO, alleging the companies have infringed on 12 patents related to the technology in John Deere's ExactEmerge planters. The company says its lawsuit states that products made or sold by Precision Planting, including vSet seed meters and SpeedTube products, violate Deere patents.... Read More
Tempting as owning new machinery may be, for many producers, the decision is made easy when a machine that offers limited functionality. It's easier, and often more economical to rent or hire a custom farming outfit to attend to once-in-a-while jobs. But, when it comes to planter versatility, Väderstad is trying to make the decision... Read More
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 seeded with a planter, but as part of this Wheat…Read More
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... Read More
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
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... Read More
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
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…Read More
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