LEROY, Sask. — About 4,500 people showed up to see $15 million worth of equipment put through its paces at Direct-Tech ’94.
Spearheaded by the LeRoy Old Chiefs senior hockey team, the event started as a way to raise money for the town of LeRoy. One of their first projects was to put artificial ice in the town’s arena.
Four thousand attended the 1993 event.
Organizer Les McGrath said the volunteer committee turned away four seeding and two harrowing machines. They were farmer-built and the committee made the decision to “stay all with manufacturers.”
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It will be tough to accommodate more machinery unless they find more land for the event, he said.
They hope to make $50,000 from the event. Last year, $35,000 went to LeRoy’s museum and minor and senior hockey programs.
The format of this year’s program was changed. Flatbed trailers pulled alongside the equipment allowed viewers to see it working. But rather than following one piece of equipment through the entire seeding demonstration, every seeder moved one width over in the field, awkwardly do-si-do-ing at the end of each row, allowing spectators to see every piece of equipment work.
“This way, it’s more intense for a farmer to have a look,” said McGrath.
It’s also fairer for equipment manufacturers, he said. Rather than seed four passes in two sites, each seeder seeds one pass in 16 different sites.
That means a seeder isn’t stuck with a bad site and farmers can see the machines perform under different field conditions.
Farmers were able to see a number of prairie-manufactured machines work:: the Bourgault 5700 air hoe drill, the Morris Maxim air drill, the Flexi-Coil 5000 air drill and the Harmon 4480 double-shoot air drill.
There was some new technology at the site. After years of testing, Bourgault is selling its 4700 air coulter drill. It was the first chance for many farmers to see this machine in the field. It has two ranks of coulters; one for the seed and the other for the fertilizer.
John Deere had its 610 seeding tool outfitted with a new double-shoot opener.
And Challenger had a rubber-trac Caterpillar tractor, pulling the Flexi-Coil unit.
Other seeding machines at the show included: Concord’s air till drill, Apollo Distributing Acra-Plant openers, the 3310 Seed Hawk, Great Plain’s two-section folding no-till drill, K-Hart’s two-row double disc seeding unit, and the Haybuster 8000.
As well, spectators were able to see demonstrations of other equipment needed for the conservation farmers’ stable: combine straw and chaff spreaders and heavy harrows including Degelman’s Strawmaster 7000, Bergen’s self-leveling harrows, High-Line Mfg’s Stubblebuster and the Phoenix H14 rotary harrow.
