Innovations highlight farm show | The Western Producer

Canada’s Farm Show returned online last week after the 2020 pandemic forced its cancellation a year ago.

Organizers said the show reached more than 68,000 views in more than 50 countries during the two-day event.

Innovation is a cornerstone of the show, and five top innovations were recognized:

• CLAAS/6800 Lexion APS SYNFLOW received a nod in the new equipment innovation category. The Class 7 combine promises a more economical and higher performing walker machine with 20 to 25 percent more capacity.

“The 6800 is not the biggest machine out there but it does give the larger machines out on the market a run for its money,” said Rick Hubrich, regional productive supervisor for Canada.

It can be fitted with CEMOS automatic to change settings on the go.

Hubrich said the main innovation on the combine is the larger synflow walker machine. It is 20 percent larger in the threshing area and in the grain handling area as well.

Hubrich said extra threshing cylinders and separation cylinders give it the extra capacity.

This translates into fewer hours, lower fuel costs and more efficiencies.

• Also a new equipment innovation winner, the Full-Floor Hopper Bin Aeration system designed by Frank Zacharias at Norbin aims to prevent grain spoilage.

The system uses louvered perforated sheets, said Zacharias.

“The louvers are all facing down so there’s no grain laying directly on top of the perforations. Therefore, you need a lot less static pressure to push the air through the grain. Your fan has to work way less because the same horsepower fan will produce double the air flow versus that flat bottom bin or any conventional air system.”

Existing hoppers can be retrofitted with the system and assembly can be done on site by the farmer or a Norbin crew.

• Vincent Pawluski from Grande Prairie, Alta., last fall designed the RCFarmArm and earned a new technology innovation honour for his efforts.

He said there are always products promising to save farmers time, fuel and money but nothing in the area of stationary PTO work.

He wired one of his own tractors to be controlled wirelessly and posted it on Twitter. He started his company in November 2020, applied for a patent and is working with prototypes and production.

“The RCFarmArm is a device that overlays existing tractor controls,” he explained.

There are two modules. One sits in the arm rest over top of the hydraulic and engine controls and the PTO. The second sits over top of the key and steering column.

“The RCFarmArm allows you to remotely start the tractor, allows you to engage and disengage your PTO to hydraulic, and increase and decrease the RPM of the tractor,” Pawluski said.

There is also an accessory port with six functions. One could control a swing auger, he said.

The device is produced with a 3-D resin printer and should be available this year.

• Another new technology innovation winner is Crop Intelligence from South Country Equipment.

It’s an app that uses moisture probes and environmental data from weather stations in the field.

“Our producers were finding they had all this data coming from the technology but they didn’t know what to do with it (and) how to make decisions based upon it,” said Cari Bode, sales administration manager. “Crop Intelligence came about when our team went about finding a solution.”

The app can measure soil moisture through the year and allow better planning based on available water.

“It’s not just collecting data. It’s using it in a way that brings value to our customers and value to agronomists across Western Canada to help maximize the efficiencies of their inputs and maximizing their yield in a given year based on the water that’s available to them on their farms,” said farmer and agronomist Andrea De Roo.

• The new equipment technology category honoured the Grose family at Rodono Industries and the company’s retracting transfer auger for air seeders.

It builds on their previous extend augers to fill air seeders, sliding under a hopper-bottom trailer where it can be easily manoeuvred.

“We found that this problem hadn’t been solved in the last 20 years, so we have 20 years of air seeders that farmers are still using that all have the same problem as soon as they switch trailers with hopper bottoms,” said engineer Darren Grose.

The product is a kit that will bolt on to existing air carts. Grose said that means a kit has to be developed for each type. Three are available already and they are working on more.

Contact karen.briere@producer.com