LANGHAM, Sask. — Rocks don’t change.
Farmers have been picking and dumping them ever since the fields were broken.
But farms have changed. Farmers have changed. Farm machinery has changed.
That means rock-pickers have had to change.
“It’s going to pick more rocks with less dump time,” said Derek Molnar of Degelman, the rock-picking giant, about the new 7800 machine.
“They can go down to one tractor.”
Degelman is introducing its rock-picker right now, one which is designed to fill the gap between the 7200 signature series machines common on many farms and the gigantic 9600 Rock King, which is too big for many farmers.
The new implement should be able to take the place of two or three 7200s, something farmers keep telling the company they want.
“We take a lot of feedback from our customers,” said Molnar, noting that farmers at farm shows like Ag in Motion held near Saskatoon in July often complain about having to use multiple pickers to get the job done.
“We know that the products we make are the things that need to get done so that you can get to the money-making operations of either harvesting or seeding.”
That means rock pickers have to be simple and tough. Research and development isn’t based on creating more and more complex and high-tech devices, but on creating implements that do more and remain easy to use and seldom break down.
“We know guys don’t have a lot of time to mess around with our equipment, so we need to make it easy to operate, we need to make it heavy-built so they can run it fast, and they can (use it hard), and not have down time,” said Molnar, who is based in Martensville, Sask.
The kind of innovations the company tries to build in are designed around dependability and simplicity, such as maintenance-free pins and colour-coded hydraulic hoses.
“We’re trying to make the experience as user-friendly as possible,” said Molnar.
“We put design time into it.”
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