Economic benefit | The cart can power around sloughs without leaving big ruts in its wake
Just as farmers begin to wrap their minds around rubber tracked trailers, the technology has taken a giant leap forward by applying power to those tracks. The first known hydraulically driven air cart in North America emerged from the Horsch Anderson shop in Andover, South Dakota, this spring. Sporting a pair of rubber tracks from […] Read more
Ron Lyseng
Stories by Ron Lyseng
Big seed cart can pull its own weight
Self propelled air seeder | PowerTrak uses power from the tractor’s P.T.O. and transfers it to the drive tracks on the cart
Most farmers would scoff at the idea of a 1,000 bushel air cart pulling their tractor and 80-foot drill out of the mud. But not Jeremy Hughes. Hughes made history in a funny sort of way in late April while seeding in wet conditions near Estevan, Sask. He was using a John Deere 9560R to […] Read more
New Holland debuts front boom sprayer
With the introduction of its Guardian SPF sprayers, New Holland has joined the growing group of companies selling front boom sprayers. The concept of mounting a spray boom on the front of the sprayer is not new, dating back to the 1960s when Ray Hagie moved the booms to the front of his model 435 […] Read more
Air drill uses springs to manage openers
Versatile’s new ML air drill features independent parallel linkage without hydraulics, real time depth control and quick switch furrow profile changes for different seed sizes. Versatile engineer Sylvio Tessier says the new ML series has been on the Ezee-On drawing board for years. When Versatile bought Ezee-On, the blueprints received a shot of money and […] Read more
Farmers try triple shoot openers
Three complete sets of the new VW30PR openers hit the soil this spring, along with dozens of openers bought by farmers who wanted to install just one as a comparison. Brothers Gavin and Colin Greenwold of Fox Valley, Sask., installed the new openers this spring on their 45 foot Flexi-Coil drill, which is equipped for […] Read more
Triple opener designed with location in mind
Triple shoot opener | Precise placement of liquid start-up phosphate, nitrogen blend and row location are vital
Vic Wickstrom said he believed triple shoot openers currently on the market had shortcomings, so he designed a new one. Wickstrom, owner and chief engineer at VW Manufacturing in Dunmore Alta., developed the VW30PR paired row. “There’s a whole trainload (of triple shoot openers), but they fail to remember that old saying about location is […] Read more
When tiny tractors are the big dogs
University engineering | Students take their designs on the road to Illinois and take away skills in agricultural design
The University of Saskatchewan Sled Dogs finished sixth overall in total points at the recent International Quarter Scale Tractor Contest, while the University of Manitoba Tiny Tractors finished fourth in the pull category. The competition, sanctioned by the American Society of Agricultural Biological Engineers, took place in Peoria, Illinois, May 31 to June 2 and […] Read more
Surfactants increase spray speed
Surfactants have come a long way since the days of diesel and dish detergent mixes. Lecithin has been an important ingredient for decades, but its role within a surfactant mix isn’t always well understood. The surfactant LI 700 by Loveland depends on a formula called Leci-Tech, which has lecithin as the main component. According to […] Read more
Nutrient removal app now on smart phones
The Mosaic Nutrient Removal program that many farmers use to determine fertilizer requirements is now available as a free app for smart phones. The software, based on hundreds of thousands of soil samples, tells a farmer how many units of each nutrient are extracted from the soil for each unit of crop removed from the […] Read more
3-D scan on the right track
Custom track mounting design created from three dimensional drawing
Designing a track mounting system using a 3-D scanner is more efficient than crawling under the tractor with a tape measure and pad of paper. It’s like science fiction come to life for Soucy engineers, who annually design hundreds of new track mounting systems for agricultural, military, construction, mining, logging and recreational vehicles. Engineers who […] Read more
