Baseball park lawns always appear so perfect with their logos and alternating light and dark stripes, determined by the direction the grass blades lay and how they catch and either absorb or reflect the light. And, while it might not be agriculture as we think of it, there might be some lessons to learn from […] Read more
Ron Lyseng
Stories by Ron Lyseng
Pumping iron in bread dough increases nutritional value
Breeding wheat that contains additional iron could improve the health of billions of people around the world suffering from iron deficiency
Pumping iron into our bakery dough might be the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s called “biofortification” and is the process of genetically lacing crop varieties with required nutrients. Biofortification is the process of naturally increasing the nutritional value of a crop. It differs from fortification, which is the process of adding minerals directly to […] Read more
Protect stored grain this winter against plural perils
You’ve already invested the money to grow, protect and harvest the crop. Don’t let potential dollar returns slip away this winter while your grain’s in storage. It may seem obvious that there are certain steps you should take to protect the quality and thus the value of your stored grain. However, in the rush to […] Read more
Busted chipped engine could cost you $100,000
The days are long gone when we would simply crank the screw a half turn on the injection pump to squeeze out an extra 75 horses. It’s a little bit more complicated today. You can still gain a lot of performance with aftermarket chips, but they are usually from questionable sources. What about the consequences? […] Read more
Manage nutrients for healthier crop
It took only four days of intensive study to change the way Joe Wecker farms, to make his operation more profitable and ultimately to change his whole outlook on the world. “Ag courses come and go, but this one was special. I had read an article about Graeme Sait and his Nutrition Farming seminar. I […] Read more
Crary returns with giant 45-foot air reel
Big headers outgrew the time-honored Crary Air Reel system, but they’re back thanks to farmer demand
FARGO, N.D. — Crary started building air reels in the mid-1980s and they proved popular in most crops and most harvest conditions. Then combine heads started growing… and growing… and Crary technology became obsolete. Heads at 40 and 45 feet are now considered normal. To span that width, manufacturers started splitting the head in the […] Read more
New aftermarket tracks restore original combine gearing
FARGO, N.D. — The benefits of installing rubber tracks on combines are well known. However, the big knock on aftermarket tracks is that they screw up your gearing and limit your road speed. On many farms, the upside of rubber tracks in the field trounced the downside of reduced transit speed on the roads. Farmers […] Read more
Understand your soil biology
Graeme Sait says farmers who have a better understanding of the biological activity in their soil also have a better chance of earning a better living from that soil. Sait, co-founder of Nutri-Tech Solutions, is one of a growing number of scientists advocating a more natural approach to food production. That doesn’t necessarily mean organic […] Read more
Farmers embrace front mount booms
Locating the boom directly over the steering axle improves the turning response, which is useful in tight fields
It was a big day for front boomers when red Miller Nitros received blue New Holland paint. When Nitro became Guardian, it instantly gave front boomers a large dealer network. Now that another major manufacturer has entered this expanding market, it gave the front boom trend a further node of respectability, according to Bob Moore […] Read more
One machine performs all tasks in single pass
A big red beet harvester from Agrifac in the Netherlands is a 12-row machine that is completely self-contained
FARGO, N.D. — Agrifac brought its big red Hexx Traxx beet harvester to show off at the Big Iron equipment show in Fargo this year. The technically marvelous machine from the Netherlands performs all harvest operations in a single pass. European growers switched over to self-propelled beet harvesters 35 years ago, with Agrifac leading that […] Read more
