Folks in Colorado could have used some corn to fight those fires around the Air Force Academy. Yes, corn. The EarthClean Corporation, South St. Paul, Minn., has made a powdered concentrate out of cornstarch and a thickening agent that smothers fire. Called TetraKO, the concentrate is mixed directly into fire truck water tanks. When the mixture shoots from the fire hose, it turns into a thick gel that smothers flames and sticks and stays on the target – walls, ceiling, roofs, even…

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You know how they say a picture is worth a 1,000 words? Well, check out the picture of the driverless tractor model called “Spirit” that is being built for use in the Red River Valley next fall, and I don’t have to write another word. The Autonomous Tractor Corporation, Fargo, N.D., will have two such tractors – one on display and one working in the demonstration field -- at the Big Iron farm show in West Fargo, N.D., Sept. 11-13, says Terry Anderson, the inventor…

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To borrow the famous phrase from the movie Forrest Gump, which I never get tired of watching, talking to farmers is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you are going to get. Like when I called Annie Carlson about their Morning Joy Farm pasture poultry and eggs I thought I d be talking about low tech and getting back to the old way of raising broilers and laying hens. Annie and her husband, John, have a CSA farm. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. They produce…

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One of the biggest draws at the recent Big Iron Show in West Fargo, N.D., was the New Holland SmartTrax display. SmartTrax is the new track option for New Holland’s T9.615 and T9.670 4WD tractors. While I was at the exhibit, there were always 8-10 people there checking futuristic track system. (It tracks look like they should go on a tank, not a tractor.)  A couple of the people were even from other implement dealerships. “I’ve never talked some much about a…

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Grain companies are hustling to keep up with the boom in grain production in eastern South Dakota. ADM Benson-Quinn recently announced it will build an elevator at Tulare, S.D., next year. The new facility will have two million bushels of storage, a 10,000 bushel per hour dryer and high-speed truck unloading and railcar loading equipment. Cenex Harvest States and West Central Ag Services says they are teaming up to build a new shuttle grain elevator at Hannaford, N.D. They’ll break…

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I’ve been in Texas the past couple days, imbedded with crop consultants from North Dakota, northwest Minnesota and other states who are learning about new crop protection products BASF.   The company that brought you Headline fungicide and Kixor herbicide introduced nearly 30 new products in the past 10 years and will introduce about the same number in the next four, company officials says.   It takes BASF 10-12 years to introduce a brand new compound and cost $276 million.   One things…

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  I caught two different glimpses of ag technology the other day.   One had names like Wolverine, Rimfire and Ignite.   The other had names like Ashley, Reid and Josiah.   Wolverine, Rimfire and Ignite are herbicides that Bayer Crop Science showed off at itsresearch farm near Sabin, Minn. The site is one of several in the U.S. that Bayer uses to test new product straight off the lab bench. Bayer has nine new products that will be on coming on the market in the next 3 to 5 years. “The…

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We think we’re so smart with biotech crops.   But we really don’t have anything over Mother Nature.   Just imagine if we had her technology. We’d have:   ·    plants that grow back from their roots.   ·    plants that seed themselves.   ·    plants that make their own fertilizer.   ·    plants that will shut down when it's too dry, too hot or too cold and then start growing again when conditions improve.   ·    plants that change themselves to become resistant to herbicide…

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Two South Dakota farmers I rode with during planting in South Dakota raved about auto steer.   David Iverson, Astoria, says he doesn’t get as tired, can start and stop planting anywhere in his field and know the rows will match up, and can keep a closer eye on the planter. Spraying for aphids is easier with auto steer, too, because the rows are hard to make out that time of year, he said.   Kevin Scott, Valley Springs, said he likes all those things plus being able to plant at night if…

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