Feb 15, 2008 12:00 PM, By Karen McMahon and Jodie Wehrspann

Windmills

What's old is new again when it comes to windmills and wind power. Wind farms with dozens of enormous steel windmills are cropping up all over the Midwest. And it's becoming trendy for eco-friendly colleges and businesses to put up their own windmills to produce power. But just a few individual farmers have had the courage to put one up. Wind power to generate a farm's energy needs makes a lot of sense and hopefully more farmers will get on this bandwagon.

Wheat

Wheat as a crop lost plenty of ground in the last decade, but in this next one we may see a renewal for this major world staple. A growing demand and decreased acreage created a healthy market. U.S. growers were surprised to see wheat move into the $5 to $6/bu. range last year. There's nothing like money to attract more money. So crop protection and seed companies should start investing more dollars for new and better products to sell to wheat growers who should have more money now to buy them.

Xerion

A new category of machine came to the U.S. in 2007 when German harvester family Claas decided to bring its superman tractor to our shores. This “tractor” is geared to the very large crop operation or a municipality that needs snow removal, road excavation and other big utility jobs. Think skid-steer loader meets 330-hp 4-wd and add in the octopus thrill ride to get an idea of the Xerion's versatility. The entire cab pivots to face behind and run implements from that direction. It crosses many classes of equipment.

Young farmers

With the farm population aging, more strategies, such as joint buying, should be devised to help young farmers. With joint buying, a farmer buys most of his/her farm equipment with other farmers under an LLC (limited liability corporation). The equipment is shared. Joint buying may create scheduling and maintenance headaches when everyone needs to plant at the same time. But it may help keep the next generation of farmers in business. Distributing the cost of equipment across several owners will help a young farmer's bottom line.

Zhang, Qin

Qin Zhang's name is synonymous with mechatronics, the science that integrates “mechanics” and “electronics” to create off-road machinery with a “brain.” Here are some applications this ag engineering professor at the University of Illinois envisions for the future in off-road equipment:

Automated navigationVehicles can drive themselves with the help of “intelligent obstacle avoidance.”

Active rollover prevention systemStill in the early stage, this system aims to protect both the operator and equipment by preventing rollovers from occurring in the first place. It does this by measuring slope and disabling the vehicle when it gets too steep.

Programmable E/H control valveControl-actuating components can be programmed like a computer to perform different applications.

Smart machine health monitor or “predictor.”An automated maintenance system checks equipment health and predicts remaining life so repairs can be made before breakdowns occur.

Vision-based side-dressingA vehicle-mounted camera, equipped with vision sensors, assesses crop growth conditions and then varies the amount of fertilizer applied based on those conditions.