Innovation is for the upmost importance in the agriculture industry and that innovation is on full display at Westerner Park this week.
Three companies awarded for their work in innovation - Arnold Innovations, ScherGain and PowerLift Hydraulic Doors - are some of the 475-plus exhibitors at the 34th annual Agri-Trade Equipment Expo.
Arnold Innovations is the 2017 Ag Innovation winner for its Combine Cylinder Reversers. The product is a hydraulically driven ratcheting de-slug wrench for a combine’s main cylinder.
“The idea came from necessity,” said Doug Arnold, managing partner at Arnold Innovations. “About eight years ago my father pinched a nerve in his neck by unplugging his CX series combine using the factory wrench and we decided there has to be something better.”
After playing around with different ideas and testing the product for a couple years, Arnold Innovations brought it to market in January, 2016.
Arnold said the company has been very busy so far at the Expo.
“It’s really cool and we’re very grateful for the recognition,” he said. “It’s nice to see our hard work and innovative idea is getting some traction.”
ScherGain was second in Ag Innovation for its drop pan, which is the first drop pan that can be mounted on any make or model of combine without using other components.
The drop pan has a measuring system that requires no calculations to discover a farmer’s grain loss per acre.
Trevor Scherman, ScherGain co-founder, said it took about seven years of fine-tuning.
“We saw what we needed to fix. We just hope to put more money in farmer’s pockets.
“Like any good farm invention it came from an argument in the field - we call it a conversation - between a father and son. We needed to find out how much we were losing to see if the risk was worth the reward,” said Scherman.
The third place innovation winner was PowerLift Hydraulic Doors for its hydraulic doors.
Michael Aleman, with PowerLift Hydraulic Doors of Southern Alberta, said its doors are made with the intention of having less moving parts.
“There’s no cables, no rollers and no springs. There’s just two hydraulics so they’re very low maintenance,” said Aleman.
With minimal moving parts it virtually eliminates any maintenance with no loss of headroom, Aleman added. The doors are up to about 24 metres wide and about 7 metres high and can be operated with no power at all.
PowerLift is originally based out of Minnesota, but has expanded to a number of locations in North America.
The Agri-Trade Equipment Expo continues Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and wraps up Saturday from 9 a.m to 3 p.m.
For more information visit www.agri-trade.com.
sean.mcintosh@reddeeradvocate.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
