The end of a remarkable year

2011 was a remarkable year in the farm equipment sector, unlike any in recent memory. The number of new machines introduced to the market this year was more than impressive. John Deere held what it referred to as the largest introduction of new machinery in its 174-year history. AGCO described its new product launch as the largest in the history of the North American agricultural equipment industry.

And it wasn't just the major manufacturers that were rolling out new stuff at a breathtaking pace; it seemed nearly every company, large or small, had something new to show this year. At Agritechnica, the world's largest farm machinery show held in Hanover Germany, there were a record number of exhibitors this November, 2,748 to be exact. That meant the world's largest fairground was full to capacity to accomodate that much new iron.

Maybe I shouldn't say iron, because more than a little of what was new this year was electronic or just digital. Farming is moving into what in the 1960s would have been referred to as the space age. Maybe that description still fits. The S Series combines Deere introduced this year have more lines of software code than early versions of the space shuttle.

And robotics officially entered the picture this year. AGCO's Fendt line introduced Guide Connect, which allows an unmanned second tractor to follow along like a puppy behind one operated by a driver. John Deere's Machine Sync uses similar technology to automate on-the-go unloading from a combine. Case IH won an award at the SIMA machinery show in Paris early in the year for a similar system that isn't yet market ready. Then, there was Kinze's autonomous tractor project, which allows a tractor to pull a grain cart from combine to truck completely on its own.

Things have started moving fast with autonomous technology. And I suspect that pace will increase.

High-voltage electric drive is set to soon replace some hydraulic systems to improve efficiency. There were several machines shown at Agritechnica that demonstrated new electrical drive systems. AEF, the Agricultural Industry Electronics Foundation, the industry group made up of many of the engineers involved in developing those new systems, recently added high-voltage to its list of working groups; and they're now in the process of establishing standards for the implementation of market-ready, high-voltage drives.

Now that the year is coming to an end, I've tallied up the travel stats involved with attending those product launches and shows in order to bring back the information on all this new development for the pages of Grainews. Here are the numbers. I've been on 22 connecting flights to, or through, four provinces, one territory, five U.S. states and across the Atlantic to Germany.

Hopefully, all that effort helped keep you in loop with what's going on in the farm machinery world.

Thanks for following along. And if there is a topic you'd like to see addressed in the magazine, or in this blog, don't hesitate to email me with your suggestions.

All the best for 2012, and merry Christmas.

Scott