HANOVER, Germany. — There’s significant Canadian content at Agritechnica. Large companies like AGI and MacDon have impressive displays with significant real estate.
I also happened upon the Canada pavilion, packed with companies familiar to many of us, including Honey Bee, Mankato, Schulte and Bushel Plus.
The companies say that there’s value in companies from Canada banding together to create more of a splash than they could individually for show attendees from around the world.
There are also some Canadian agriculture companies that are growing quickly.
At Bushel Plus, founder and CEO Marcel Kringe says that his company has grown to 30 employees, as the business diversifies from technology to test harvest loss out the back of the combine, to buying Canadian company Mad Concaves, to training farmers all over the world, from Europe, to Canada, to the United States, to Australia on how to maintain and set their combine for greater productivity.
Not far from the Canada pavilion is another company with a Canadian connection – Vaderstad, which took over Seed Hawk, which manufactures in Langbank, Sask. Vaderstad launched a new seeder at Agritechnica, the Seed Hawk 600-900C.
Chris Bettschen, a Canadian from Saskatchewan, who manages Australia and New Zealand for Vaderstad, says the new seeder will be manufactured at Vaderstad’s plant in Sweden, but will have components from the Canadian plant. This seeder will have a wider appeal around the world, including in other parts of Canada, than Seed Hawk drills did due to its slimmer available width and new Vaderstad electronics. However, it retains some of the Seed Hawk look – and its well-known openers.
ganized in a new way, the focus on two production systems in agriculture – one for small grains – think tractors and tillage, planters, fertilizer spreaders, then sprayers and combines. On the other side of the display is livestock equipment.
My tour of John Deere’s display included updates to combine systems, including slope compensation, new belts for draper heads that catch more small-seeded grains and oilseeds, a review of the company’s autonomy plans and a close-up look at its 8R tractor with its E-IVT transmission that produces electricity, which then drives power needs of implements.
John Deere often commands the spotlight with new releases, but that’s not the case this year at Agritechnica.
Watch for much more detail on these and many more stories and videos from Agritechnica in our Glacier FarmMedia newspapers and websites.
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