Archive, Industry News

Harvesting dominates ASABE list

Advances in harvesting dominate list of the top 50 US agricultural innovations of 2020, with spraying a close second place.

 

The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) has named its top 50 Ag machinery innovations of 2020 – and 10 of them were related to harvesting.

The ASABE’s AE50 awards honour the 50 products judged to be the best innovations in engineering and technology for agricultural, food, and biological systems, as judged by a panel of international engineering experts.


 Check out our story about 2019’s winners here


Agco and Case and New Holland were tied with seven prizes each, while John Deere took out six prizes – of which five were related to harvesting.

These included its flagship X9 Combine, as well as its CH950 sugar cane harvester, which the company says allows for controlled traffic from planting to harvesting – helping to reduce compaction by up to 60 per cent, it says.

Prizes were also given to its HDR rigid cutterbar draper, which boasts a new hinged frame that provides nearly two times the vertical wing range compared to competitive machines; and the Harvest monitor with SmartClean system, designed for mechanical cane harvesters that uses sensors to generate correlations between fan speed and cleaning performance.

Another seven prizes were awarded for spraying technologies, including Deere’s ExactRate Liquid Fertiliser System that uses pulse width modulation to carrying out in-cab rate adjustments and individual row section control on its ExactApply Sprayer technology.

Also recognised was US spray specialist Raven for its Hawkeye 2 Nozzle Control System and its VSN Visual Guidance system that uses a stereo vision camera and non-contact radar sensors to navigate through emerged crops.

Case IH’s AFS Connect Steiger series of tractors won a prize for the new technology in its data management systems to enable operators to adjust, monitor and transfer data as they want.

The MultiControl Armrest design in the new Steiger and Magnum series tractors was also recognised with a separate AE50 award.

Also recognised was Case IH’s LB436 HD large square baler, which is due for release in Australia in 2021, awarded for the newly-designed bale chamber that judges said helped producers achieve maximum bale density and high-quality bales.

The Axial-Flow 250 series combines have also been recognised, the sieve pressure visualisation helping maximise cleaning system performance by equipping the operator with the feedback needed to save grain and make the correct harvesting parameter adjustments.

Fendt was the big winner for Agco, with the marque winning prizes for the Fendt Ideal combine harvester, the Fendt IdealDrive steering system and the 15m 9350 DynaFlex Draper Header with AutoDock Header Docking System, designed to attach automatically to the Ideal Combines.

AutoDock uses guide pins and hydraulic actuators to connect the drives on both sides of the header and connect all systems with a single-point coupler while mechanically latching the header—all in 5 seconds.

The marque also took out prizes for its 700 Gen 6 Series tractors, the Fendt 1100 Vario MT Series track tractors and its Fendt TeachIn Headland Turn Assistant for tractors.

The Fendt Momentum planter was also awarded a prize, with the ASABE noting the optional Load Logic system helped address planter soil compaction while the in-line tandem transport wheels helped eliminate planter pinch rows.

Agco senior vice president of global crop cycle and Fuse connected services Brad Arnold says the company is proud to have been recognised for the new technologies.

“These award-winning products reflect that spirit and our continued quest to design and engineer smart, innovative equipment and agronomic-focused solutions for farmers around the globe,” he says.

“This recognition clearly demonstrates AGCO’s investment in and commitment to helping make farmers’ lives easier and their operations more productive and sustainable.”

Other planters awarded were Case IH’s Fast Riser 6100 Front-Fold Planter, used for corn/soybean/cotton planting in Brazil, and Precision Planting’s FurrowForce two-stage closing system – which closes a furrow and then firms the soil around it using a weight sensor.

Aside from Case IH’s LB436 baler, its stablemate New Holland also won an award for its BigBaler 350 High Density, which it says produces bales up to 22 per cent heavier than conventional balers.

The i-Dense system on Kuhn’s VB7100 Series of balers, which independently controls the baler’s density settings based on crop conditions and moisture levels, was also awarded a prize.

These awards, and many more, will be handed out during ASABE’s 25th Agricultural Equipment Technology Conference, to be held virtually in February.

On that occasion, judges from ASABE and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers will also name up to three entries the Davidson Prize for the most innovative technology.

Send this to a friend