Short Canadian Growing Season May be the Inspiration for Innovation
By Denise Faguy
Last month I attended the National Farm Machinery show. My assignment was to focus on machinery – the agriculture community loves farm equipment, and Precision Agriculture.
I was sure to visit the big brands and to see all their latest innovations – many of those articles and videos have already been posted.
As a Canadian, as I walked this show, I started to notice that many companies were Canadian. Canadian agriculture companies have a diverse set of truly innovative offerings. Does the shorter Canadian growing season inspire people to innovate to overcome obstacles so that producers can be as efficient as possible?
I am not sure what the cause of the success is, I just know that it made me proud.
I thought I would share this list of Canadian agriculture manufacturers and distributers with the Canadian farmers who have undoubtedly inspired these companies to develop their innovative products.
The companies highlighted below do not cover all Canadian companies who exhibited at the National Farm Machinery Show, this is only a small snapshot of Canadian companies that exhibited:
Ag Growth International Inc.
Greg Giesbrecht, Director of Sales, AGI provided an overview of some of the AGI products, including Westfield Grain Augers, Batco Belt Conveyors, Rem GrainVac, and Hutchinson Augers and Conveyors. AGI offers plenty of grain auger options. AGI is also active in helping farmers with data through AGI SureTrack, which helps farmers to manage their resources and make management decisions. The company provides agriculture products around the globe but was started in Manitoba.
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Bourgault Industries Ltd.
Perry Weisberg, Sales & Marketing Leader at Bourgault Industries provided an overview of the company’s Frame Mount Seeder. The machine features an air seeder tank and a drill platform all in one product. The Frame Mounted Seeder has very narrow transport dimensions, less than 14 feet in height and 10 feet width, which means it is great for areas with tight restrictions for transport down the road. It also allows for adaptation of Bourgault’s mid-row bander technology. The frame mounted seeder is designed for everything from a no-till seeder to a conventional seeder. Bourgault is based in St Brieux, Saskatchewan, Canada, and in addition to the US, Bourgault has dealers in Australia and Russia.
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MacDon Industries Ltd.
Bruce Wyatt, Territory Manager with MacDon, provided an overview of the MacDon - R216 Header and the Corn Header. While MacDon is an international company with offices in the United States, Australia, Russia, Brazil, and Germany, its roots are in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
The biggest feature of the R216 Header is the even flow, and the wider operating range of ground speeds. It has a very low-profile header and is designed to cut, condition, and lay a wide variety of grasses and hay crops in windrows.
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The MacDon Corn Header has an eight row, 38-inch configuration, but six-row and 12-row versions are also available, as well as 20-inch, 22-inch, and 30-inch row spacing available. Key features of the MacDon C Series headers include OctiRoll™ Residue Management System. The headers feature eight contact points for excellent cutting. The rib strength in the snouts and poly-dividers decrease the amount of friction on the corn.
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Meridian Manufacturing Inc.
Meridian Manufacturing’s roots are based in rural Manitoba, but Meridian Manufacturing is now based in Camrose, Alberta, with sales in the United States as well. Lewis Wenell, Sales Manager, Meridian Manufacturing Inc. provided an overview of new and enhanced Meridian Manufacturing products for 2020. A large seed tender like the 405 Seed Tender line helps farmers to be more efficient in short planting windows. Recognizing that farms come in a variety of sizes with a variety of needs, the Meridian Seed Tender lines goes from a two pro-box unit to the 405 Seed Tender unit, with a number of variations in between. Seed tenders help producers to load seed into planters or drills, thereby decreasing the downtime in the field, keeping tractors and planters moving.
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Schulte Industries Ltd.
Schulte is based in Englefeld, Saskatchewan, Canada. Glen Brewster with Schulte Industries provided an overview of products, including the cutter line, which includes 15-foot, 18-foot, 20-foot and 26-foot variations. Schulte products also include rock-picking equipment and forestry units.
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