Ron Lyseng

Ron Lyseng

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Western Producer

Stories by Ron Lyseng

The Precision Inflation System lets the operator run maximum air pressure in transit and low air pressure in the field. Sally Brodbeck explains that the seal lasts 10,000 hours because the rotary union is only pressurized when tires are being inflated or deflated. | Ron Lyseng photo
Crop Management, Machinery

Pressure up for transit, down for the field

FARGO, N.D. — Central tire inflation systems are gaining ground with operators who see the value of running maximum allowable tire pressure in transit and minimum allowable tire pressure in the field. Adjustable tire pressure has become a major factor because of the growing awareness of the impact that soil compaction has on yield. Changing […] Read more
Crop Management

Methane conditioner used to keep turbine blades turning

Burning dirty fuel in a turbine destroys the equipment but one company hopes to solve the problem with new technology

Many farmers in oil and gas country navigate by the gas flares. These flares are a double edged sword. They mean jobs and additional income from access or rights, but they are bad for the environment and a waste of energy. The options are to close the wells or convert all that gas into electricity […] Read more
Recent fires in Saskatchewan and Alberta have created a great deal of damage for grain and livestock operations, as well as rural homeowners. As communities and individuals rebuild, the costs beyond the infrastructure and lives lost eventually lead to the soil. Pastures and eroded fields need special consideration after a fire. | William DeKay photo
Crop Management

Prairie soil after a fire

Risks


Some mainstream news outlets tend to sensationalize their coverage of prairie wildfires by emphasizing how many “acres of land were destroyed,” leaving Canadians with the impression that the land is gone. Grassland specialists such as Barry Adams counter those reports by explaining that fire cannot destroy land. “But it can destroy peoples lives,” said Adams, […] Read more
The SnowDog is powered by an American-built Briggs & Stratton, in either a 7.5 h.p. or 13 h.p. version. The wide track allows the machine to work in mud and marshy conditions year round. | Robin Booker photo
Crop Management, Machinery

Back to the basics: SnowDog moves things from A to B

The Russian built machine takes farmers from pasture checks and fencing chores to jobs transporting feed out or calves in

FARGO, N.D. — Remember when snowmobiles were cheap and the technology simple? Well, those days might be returning with the back-to-basics SnowDog built in Russia. Some of the earliest snow machine contrivances in North America consisted of a power unit driving the track and pulling a single sled or train of sleds holding the driver […] Read more
The Wolverine Extreme can dig and fling soil 150 feet left or right at a rate as high as 960 cubic yards per minute. Built in Oak Bank, Man., the price tag is $63,900. | Dynamic Ditchers photo
Crop Management

Wolverine takes dirt moving to extreme

Scratching out a new surface drain is one thing. Moving thousands of cubic yards of soil away from a ditch so it doesn’t form a dike is quite another. The deeper and longer the drain, the more spoils, or dirt, you need to move. If you don’t move the spoil soil far enough, you can […] Read more
On this 72-acre field at East Selkirk, orange depicts the 24 acres lost to flooding in 2014 before any drainage work had been done. Blue depicts the 10 acres lost in 2015 after some drainage had been accomplished. Farms in this area typically lose 20 percent of their crop in wet years, which sometimes happen six years in a row. | Mitch Rezansoff image
Crop Management

Drain your water not your dollars

Farmland northeast of Winnipeg can produce great yields… if it doesn’t rain… but generally it rains. “Drought” is a word that doesn’t exist in farmer’s vocabulary around here. “Flood” is a common word though. The prevalent winds come sweeping down from the northwest, sucking up moisture from Lake Winnipegosis, Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipeg. The […] Read more
Big Mother is a 4,000-bushel portable grain bin that carries a list price of US $119,000. It’s built in South Dakota. The 22-inch unload auger delivers 900 bushels per minute and requires a minimum 200 h.p. tractor. The front pair of tires have follow-type steering. The two rear tires have hydraulic steering controlled from the tractor cab. | Robin Booker photo
Crop Management

Grain storage on the move

FARGO, ND — A 4,000 bushel bin may not seem significant. But if it’s mobile, with 14 big tires and its own 900 bushel per minute unload auger, it might come in handy at harvest. That’s what Walkabout Mother Bins is all about, said Katie Hansen, sales representative for USAKanagroo, the company in Webster, South […] Read more
The Transformer earns its name because it smoothly transitions between scraper, crown grader and ditcher by manipulating wing positions. | Bridgeview Manufacturing photo
Crop Management

Drainage design by drones

A UAV helicopter (unmanned aerial vehicle) bouncing a pulsating laser beam off the Earth’s surface can produce a topographical field map with sub-one-inch accuracy. The result is a highly precise drainage map. The system is called LIDAR, standing for Light Detection and Ranging. Until recently, it was only affordable in the realm of geoscience researchers. […] Read more
The same machine can crown a road or crown a back slope when the wings are back past the centre line, or contour a ditch when the wings are forward. With the wings raised, the full force of the machine is concentrated on the six-foot wide blade at the centre of the machine for work in hard ground. | Bridgeview Manufacturing photo
Crop Management

Scraper, ditcher, road grader makes many jobs easier

A UAV helicopter (unmanned aerial vehicle) bouncing a pulsating laser beam off the Earth’s surface can produce a topographical field map with sub-one-inch accuracy. The result is a highly precise drainage map. The system is called LIDAR, standing for Light Detection and Ranging. Until recently, it was only affordable in the realm of geoscience researchers. […] Read more
Swan River farmer Jeff Penner advocates wide shallow drains like this, which meander around the field so water soaks into the ground instead of flowing off the field. | Chris Laing photo
Crop Management

Drain without deluge: slow the water flow

FARGO, N.D. — Jeff Penner isn’t selling a machine so much as he’s selling a concept. He’s showing farmers how to achieve good drainage without letting a drop of water flow off the field. There’s an old saying about how everybody lives downstream from somebody else. Likewise, we also live upstream from somebody, which carries […] Read more

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