Similar to how auto-steer has allowed farmers to focus on other tasks rather than steering while crawling up or down a field, a new California company is testing self-driving semis to make trucking safer and allow drivers to do something else between exits on the interstate. Otto, which announced its existence last week, was founded... Read More
Category: Machinery
Challenging times in the machinery market continue, as tractor sales in Canada slump. According to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers' April data, year-to-date tractor sales in Canada are down 18.6 percent from last year. 4-wheel-drive sales are down 22.1 percent, while 2-wheel-drive sales are down 18.4 percent. Combine sales in Canada are bucking the trend,... Read More
The online sharing concept that has produced Uber, Airbnb and other examples of peer-to-peer services aimed at better utilizing existing capital is developing in the U.S. farm machinery market. MachineryLink Sharing, which launched in the fourth quarter of 2015, bills itself as the industry's first internet-based equipment sharing program. Farmers, and even some equipment dealers,... Read More
The tank's clean so the whole sprayer is ready to go. Right? Actually, that's a myth. Our dynamic duo of Sprayers101.com, Tom Wolf, of AgriMetrix, and Jason Deveau, of OMAFRA, are back to explode another spray myth. In this episode, @Nozzle_Guy and @Spray_Guy discover that there's more to cleaning a sprayer than just making sure... Read More
Japanese tractor company Kubota has announced a deal to purchase Salina, Kansas-based equipment-maker Great Plains Manufacturing, Inc. Kubota will acquire 100 percent of Great Plains' shares for a stock price of approximately US$430 million, subject to provisions in the agreement. The deal expands on a North American alliance Kubota had with Great Plains' turf and... Read More
Three engineering students from the University of Regina won an international ag robotics competition in Indiana last week. The agBOT Challenge saw teams compete to build the most efficient, unmanned seeder, capable of planting two different varieties in half-mile passes while maintaining control and providing data back to the operator (see the lengthy and impressive... Read More
It's been an exciting year for Fendt's forage branch. The company presented their brand new rotary hay rake at Agritechnica in November and have since received two silver awards for the innovation. The first, from Agritechnica itself, and the second from the International Agricultural Machinery Fair, FIMA, in Spain. "We believe that there is a... Read More
Having your tractor hop up a hill is never a good feeling. Besides being downright uncomfortable, it's a powerful reminder that the tractor isn't operating to its full potential (think fuel consumption, tire wear and drawbar performance). But proper ballasting can be a big job, making it an easy job to overlook. That's where John... Read More
Many of the new innovations from machinery companies at Agritechnica's 2015 show seemed to be inspired by transportation issues, and the Seagull Telescopic Reel from STW srl Italy was no exception. The harvester header combines the aforementioned telescopic reel technology with a folding cutting platform to compress widths during transport, allowing the header to shrink... Read More
If you've ever heard RealAg agronomist Peter Johnson speak, chances are you know what he thinks about hoe drills. "Hoe drills are junk. Buy a real drill. Drive on," said Johnson, while he was still the cereal specialist for OMAFRA, in this video at FarmTech a few years ago. So what does Wheat Pete have... Read More