Tire Kickers’ Dream At World Ag Expo
April 1, 2008 
Unlike last year, when Rudy Giuliani dropped in to speak, none of the presidential candidates came by the 2008 World Ag Expo. But the show came too late in the game this year for “America’s Mayor” — as did the Florida primary, but that’s another story. No one at the ag expo cared, anyway. Who wants to hear politicians speak when you can check out new stuff?
Any of the 100,000-plus visitors walking the grounds at this year’s World Ag Expo, held as always in Tulare, CA, the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, had to be careful in asking the innocent question, “What’s new?” They would certainly get an earful at the world’s biggest agricultural exposition, which had a whopping 2.6 million square feet devoted to exhibits.
And while there were plenty of tires to kick — not to mention tractors to drive at the hugely popular “Ride and Drive” lots — new products were not limited to the big iron. Everything from a remote-controlled airplane, the CropCam, down to identification microdots so small they can be sprayed onto your equipment, DataDots, were on display at the show.
The aforementioned two products, incidentally, were two products celebrated by the show’s organizers this year. The companies deemed to have the show’s Top 10 new products were able to show off their wares at a new exhibition in 2008. In this article, we provide more information on some of the new products of interest to fruit growers, including these that made the World Ag Expo Top 10: the AutoProbe, the Field Water Alarm, the Low Profile Orchard Cab, and the Irrigation Manager.
Sprint
Orchard Machinery Corp.
The advantage of this new nut harvester is that it has an on-board computer that dictates exactly how much each tree should be shaken, getting as much crop as possible. Orchard Machinery calls it FAST — Fully Automated Shaking Technology. “It takes operator error out of the equation,” says the president of the Yuba City, CA, company, Don Mayo. “Every tree is shaken the same.”
With a machine named Sprint utilizing a system called FAST, you’d expect the harvest to go quick, and it does. It’s not unusual for the machine to harvest five to seven trees per minute. Rotating wheel sweepers clear the crop lying on the ground in front of the tires. Power for the shaker, the most recent in the Shock Wave line, is supplied by a Cummins turbo diesel engine and state-of-the-art hydraulics.
As with other Shock Wave systems, fail-safe devices are built into the machine to give growers maximum protection for their trees. And while the system’s computer may take the operator out of the equation, it doesn’t mean he’s being ignored. The Sprint’s operator compartment is fully air conditioned, and comes complete with a compact disc stereo sound system.
Contact: [email protected]; 530-673-2822; www.shakermaker.com
CropCam
PineCreek Precision
The CropCam offers images on demand and is an inexpensive alternative to satellite or flying an airplane over a field. It can provide images for crops, drainage, spraying, precision agriculture, or a multitude of other uses.
The CropCam was designed to be reasonably priced, highly efficient, and user friendly for the commercial market. It is a radio-controlled glider plane equipped with a Pentax digital camera, controlled by an autopilot, along with pre-programmed ground control software. The CropCam can also be manually controlled.
The CropCam utilizes an autopilot for navigation and control of the camera; for everything else, it utilizes parts (wings, servos, propellers, glow fuel, or batteries) that can be purchased locally. This makes the CropCam’s parts practical and accessible worldwide. Note: PineCreek Precision is seeking dealers.
Contact: [email protected]; 204-344-5617; www.cropcam.com
Field Water Alarm
Jacobson Remotics
Inventor Bob Jacobson got the idea for the Field Water Alarm from, of all people, his mother-in-law. One day she told him: “Bob, I don’t mind irrigating, but I don’t like standing in the hot sun for half an hour or more waiting for the water to be changed.”
The integrated flood irrigation control system nearly eliminates the need to continuously check when the irrigation gates, distribution valves, or pots in a flood-irrigated field need to be closed. This integrated system of detection and subsequent alert provides the grower a way to decrease time wasted in the field, tells him the moment the water comes in, and warns of the possibility of over or under irrigation.
The Field Water Alarm consists of a detection probe that is placed into a row in any field where water makes contact. Then it sends a signal to the field control unit which is self-contained in a water-tight case. A five-watt radio unit sends a prerecorded voice message to the grower’s base station of a hand-held radio receiver. The cellular unit dials up to three phone numbers in succession, leaving the Field Water Alarm caller ID number and text message “ALARM ON.”
Contact: [email protected]; 209-847-8003; www.fieldwateralarm.com
JD Low Profile Orchard Cab
Key Dollar Cab
Almond growers who have long sought a tractor with plenty of power but low enough to maneuver through orchard blocks might be interested in this new product from Key Dollar Cab. The JD Low Profile Orchard Cab is custom-designed for peak efficiency, economy, and driver comfort during spraying operations in almonds, says the Portland, OR, company’s manager, Jason Dohrmann.
The aftermarket cab, which is only 81 inches high and 29 inches wide at the top, is available exclusively through John Deere dealers in California. The cab is mounted on the John Deere 6020L Series tractor that has long been popular with growers of other crops.
The cab was designed using the latest 3-D modeling software, says Dohrmann, and is the result of their many years of experience in building spray cabs for use in orchards and vineyards in Oregon, Washington, and California. Unlike a traditional cab, the sloped windshield slips past trees without breaking branches and losing nuts, preserving growers’ yields.
Contact: [email protected]; 800-481-0876; www.keydollarcab.com
Irrigation Manager
PureSense
PureSense focuses on one of life’s most important resources, water — its use and its quality. More than 70% of the world’s water is consumed today by agriculture. Poor water use plagues the industry, with the impact most detrimental to irrigated crops. PureSense brings the benefits in new irrigation management systems. PureSense systems deliver water more precisely and sustainably.
PureSense uses its patented informatics and proprietary monitoring stations to integrate the best of probes, sensors, and telemetry and position them in vineyards, orchards, and farms to serve customers with superior quality applications for reducing the risks of crop yields and operating margins. PureSense serves growers with easy-to-use, actionable intelligence, online and anytime from anywhere. It’s no wonder some say PureSense is the “Bloomberg for Ag.”
Many crops are susceptible to significant changes in weather, changes such as heat and frost. When the PureSense system anticipates these changes, alerts are sent to a grower’s cell phone, prompting the grower into action to alleviate frost damage. Tom Rogers, an almond grower in Madera CA, says, “PureSense makes real-time water management not only easy — it pays you back with higher yields, better quality of yield, less pumping and driving, and less use of chemicals.”
Contact: [email protected]; 510-444-1631; www.puresense.com
AutoProbe
AgRobotics
Jim Burton, an Arkansas grower, was out in one of his fields taking soil samples 15 years ago when he thought, “There’s got to be a better way.” So Burton, who has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering, started envisioning a machine that would make it easier for growers to take soil samples. In 2002, he started working on the design of such a machine, and the result is the AutoProbe.
Manufactured by an Arkansas company, Ag Robotics, which is run by Jim’s son, Jeff Burton, the AutoProbe not only takes the back-breaking work out of soil sampling, it does it better and faster than a person ever could. The device is built around a single rubber-track-driven mechanism actuating an on-the-go probe that penetrates the soil to a depth of 6 inches and withdraws a soil core as it retracts.
Synchronized with each rotation of the track, the probe is thrust through a special link in the track with the ability to pull cores in 16-foot increments. That’s about one sample every 30 seconds when towed across a field at a speed of 8 mph by a GPS-steered vehicle. It allows growers who avail themselves of the service to hit the same spot and same depth time after time, says Jeff Burton. “That consistency of pattern is really appreciated by agronomists,” he says. “You get a much better feel for what’s taken out of the soil.”
Contact: [email protected]; 501-255-7346; www.agrobotics.com
DataDots
MicroDot Security Solutions
About the size of a grain of sand, each DataDot is manufactured using a polyester substrate with an alphanumeric code via a laser etch process. The DataDots are suspended in a specially formulated adhesive containing a UV trace and are attached to any item of value, by either a unique spray or brush-on process. Once applied to your equipment, simply register your pin number in the DataDotUSA database, which is accessible by law enforcement personnel to identify recovered property and return it to its rightful owner.
DataDots reduce theft through deterrence, which is the ultimate protection for all your personal property and business assets. DataDots help the police to prove the true identity of these assets, increasing a potential thief’s risk of conviction. The “Protected by DataDot Technology” decals warn thieves to stay away from your equipment.
Growers are particularly vulnerable to theft, because they often have a lot of expensive equipment that is at times left unattended. Spraying on DataDots can help bring you peace of mind. They can also be used on your tools, as well as home equipment such as computers and electronic components.
Contact: [email protected]; 559-225-3368; www.microdotsecurity.com
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