Exploring never gets old for me. It was Saturday afternoon and time to get out of the house. Making my way through the smoke from Canada’s wildfires and the really strange streets of the Tangletown neighborhood in Minneapolis, it was time to find the Washburn Water Tower.
It’s long walk to the top but worth it! (Photo by Chad Smith)
The first observation was Tangletown is the right name for that neighborhood. Whoever put those streets together maybe had one too many drinks with dinner. Nonetheless, it was time to find the tower, and for a good reason.
It looked like a structure you’d see somewhere near a castle in any one of the Lord of the Rings movies. But let’s delve into a bit of history first.
The 110-foot concrete cylinder was constructed in 1932 and sits at the top of a hill in Tangletown. A book titled “Secret Twin Cities, a Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure” was the perfect exploring manual. It points out that if you aren’t within a block of the structure, you’ll never see the tower because it’s hidden by a combo of dense residential areas and tall trees.
Look at how intricate that carving is! (Photo by Chad Smith)
The reason for preserving the old structure was the intricate details builders put into constructing the tower, which is no longer used to supply water. Encircling the top of the tower are eight-foot tall, five-ton eagles with spread wings that look ready for takeoff.
A bit further down the cylinder, it looks like knights are standing guard outside the walls of a castle. Closer to the base are 18-foot tall, eight-ton “guardians of health” holding a perpetual vigil with swords. At a time when Minnesota was in the middle of a deadly typhoid outbreak, the guardians were symbolic protectors of a clean water supply.
Photo by Chad Smith
The tower had a capacity of 1.35 million gallons of water, which it faithfully supplied to the neighborhood until the 1990s. Three men from the neighborhood designed and engineered the structure John Daniels was the sculptor, William Hewitt was the project engineer, and Harry Wild Jones was the lead architect.
Get out and get to exploring. The massive medieval tower is located at 401 Prospect Avenue in Minneapolis, and there’s no charge to get up close and personal with the “tower guards.”
“The Eagles have landed!” (In my best Merry and Pippin voice from LOTR!Lonely sentries guarding the Washburn Water Tower
Commodities and sports typically don’t go together most years. However, this fall, the two topics have come together in an interesting way.
Being a long-time sports broadcaster, I’ve noticed that when the major sports seasons wrap up, certain sports media love to immediately do what they call a “way-too-early” look to the next season. Evidently, it’s not just a sports thing.
I know harvest is just ramping up in many areas as I write this, but Farm Futures took what some might think is a “way-too-early” survey of planting intentions for 2023, and I couldn’t pass it up. It looks like corn will be king once again next spring among all commodities.
Corn looks to be king when it comes to 2023 spring planting (photo from agriculture.com)
Jacqueline Holland is the grain market analyst for Farm Futures, and she wrote an article about the survey. She says the way-too-soon survey results are favoring corn for spring planting despite some challenges that come with the commodity.
“Even with higher fertilizer prices, farmers are still prepared to go all-in on corn,” she said. “Our survey found that farmers expect to plant 94.3 million acres of corn, a five percent increase from USDA’s current acreage estimates.”
If that prediction is realized, it would be the most corn planted in the U.S. since 95.4 million acres went into the ground in 2013. While soybean acres will be behind corn next year, U.S. growers are still sowing a lot of beans during spring planting in 2023.
“We expect farmers to plant 87.3 million acres of beans,” Holland said. “That’s almost a one percent decrease from this year’s acreage.” Cotton is one of the reasons that soybean acreage is going to drop a little. In the Mississippi Delta, a lot of acres in that region are going to provide “stiff competition” for soybeans during spring planting.
They also expect wheat acres to rise in 2023 thanks to more winter wheat acres in the Eastern Corn Belt. Farm Futures expects growers to plant 36.6 million acres of winter wheat. With more winter wheat acres going in the ground, spring wheat acres will back up from this year, with the 2023 estimate at 12.3 million acres.
“That means a grand total of 48.9 million acres of wheat will be planted in 2023,” she said.
Holland admits she was a little surprised at the survey results. She says there was a lot of price responsiveness to the rapidly-rising fertilizer prices heading into spring planting this year.
“When farmers were making their planting decisions in December last year, soybean prices were rallying strongly,” Holland recalled. “But with all of the issues we’ve seen with the flow of corn in the Black Sea this year, as well as the U.S. corn crop struggling with drought, corn has some bullish prospects for next year.”
She says if we do see a larger corn acreage next year, that might lead to some expansion back in the cattle market. In turn, that would likely revive some corn acreage in the Plains. Remember, about three million acres of corn went into prevent plant in the spring of this year.
A Farm Futures Survey shows we might be harvesting a lot of corn again come fall of 2023. (Photo from kansasfarmfoodconnection)
“A lot of those acres were in the Dakotas and Minnesota,” she said. “Barring another bad weather event next year, I expect those acres to go back into corn in 2023.”
Farm Futures also has other questions in their survey beyond commodities and planting intentions. Those questions include where farmers are headed with input costs next year. Based on the survey responses, Holland says profit margins are going to shrink next year. The question is, how much?
“As of right now, it doesn’t look like growers are going to skimp on any fertilizer applications,” Holland said. “Most responses show farmers are ready to lock in their fertilizers at the lowest prices they can get. That will hopefully keep at least some liquidity in these crop budgets.
“We’ll see how these things ultimately shake out for planting and commodities,” she added. “There’s a long time between now and next spring.”
Boom Island Park in Minneapolis is one of my favorite places to explore in the Twin Cities. In fact, it was the first place I went to when I got bit by the exploring bug. Well, now that Derrick moved to Minnesota, it’s time to start showing him some of my favorite places in the Twin Cities (and there are a LOT of them).
Boom Island Park in Minneapolis and what remains of the island it used to be. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The park actually gets its name from the island that it once was. The island was named for the booms that were used to separate logs floated down the Mississippi River to sawmills powered by St. Anthony Falls (another of my favorite spots). Each log cut along the tributaries of the Mississippi River was “branded” by each lumber company that put its own stamp on the end of is logs.
One of the things I love about Boom Island Park is the big city is on one side, the green (it will be at some point!) and the wide open space of the park on the other side. (Photo by Chad Smith)
They were separated using the stamps and directed to the right mill by men working from Boom Island. The sawmills at the falls were eventually replaced by flour mills. What remains of those flour mills makes up Mill Ruins Park, yet another great place to explore in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.
What I love most about the park, besides just how big it is, is the fact that it’s set up next to the Mississippi River. You’ve got the big city on one side, and the open areas of the park on the other side.
My son Derrick appears to be pondered the Mississippi River. He is deep like that :). (Photo by Chad Smith)
The land ceased to be an island a while ago due to a buildup of silt and sawdust. It was bought by the park board with funds from the state legislature through the Metropolitan Council in 1982. The land was bought from a construction company for $2.6 million. That land had been targeted for acquisition in the 1978 plan for the development of the central riverfront as a park by the Riverfront Development Coordinating Board.
At one point, the RDCB even considered converting the land to an island once again, but they decided against it because of the cost. The first phase of the park was dedicated in 1987.
Isn’t this a remarkable old bridge at Boom Island Park? (Photo by Chad Smith)
One of my other favorite parts of the park is an old railroad bridge, originally built in 1901 to Nicollet Island, was converted into a bicycle and pedestrian bridge. The bridge was repaired and restored in 2018.
And here is the old railroad bridge. The MOTHER LODE for this old urban explorer.
Photo by Chad SmithOne of my favorite places to go hiking! (Photo by Chad Smith)What I was most surprised at that day is how many people took hiking trips up and down the tracks. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Fergus Falls was calling me over the weekend, and that call finally proved irresistible. I’d heard through the grapevine about the ruins of an old dam along the Otter Tail River that collapsed back in the day. Well, I quit listening after the word “ruins” because I already knew I wanted to see “Broken Down Dam Park.”
Here’s a short video tour of the broken dam
Folks in that area built what’s called a hydroelectric gravity dam on the river in 1907. The dam was built out of concrete and powered a plant called the Fergus Falls City Light Station. The station provided power to city residents for just a year before disaster struck.
Approaching the Broken Down Dam (Photo by Chad Smith)
The large concrete dam suddenly collapsed in 1909, and you did not want to be downriver from the massive wall of water that suddenly rushed down the Otter Tail River. Can you image the roar of all that water moving at once?
One part of the Broken Down Dam near Fergus Falls that gives the dam it’s name. (Photo by Chad Smith
The dam broke at 4:20 in the morning on September 24, 1909, and the power of all that water releasing at once broke not one, not two, not three, but FOUR other dams downriver. Atlas Obscura says there were reports that the water was so powerful, it picked up a ten-ton generator and threw it into the river. Thankfully, no one died as a result of what was a catastrophe of immense size.
A wiki article (which I was able to validate in several other web pages) says that engineers made a crucial mistake when they constructed the dam. They didn’t conduct a proper site evaluation and wound up building on top of a spring. While I don’t pretend to understand how a spring can flow separately from a river while occupying the same space, it only took a year for the water pressure to build up along the foundations. The rupture washed out the concrete foundation and undermined the structural integrity of the dam, which then collapsed.
The Broken Down Dam, first built near Fergus Falls in 1907, collapsed to to an engineering error. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The dam broke in the center, and the rushing water first took out the Kirk Dam, which powered the city’s waterworks. The water then took out the Mount Faith Avenue Bridge before sweeping away the Red River Mill Dam and Woolen Mill Dam. Damage to the two mills totaled $15,000, with the damage in today’s economy equivalent to $432,000 in 2020.
Conspiracy theory alert: The Dayton Hollow Dam, five miles southwest of where the dam broke, was saved from destruction. The dam’s owner, Vernon Wright, had enough warning to hustle down there in time to get the floodgates open. The conspiracy? He also was president of the Otter Tail Power Company.
The biggest break in the Broken Down Dam. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The city of Fergus Falls then hired Otter Tail Power to build transmission lines into town. That helped spawn a local rumor, fueled by the newspaper, that Wright deliberately destroyed the city’s dam by secretly distributing quicksilver from a rowboat to undermine it.
Broken Down Dam Park was established in 1949, an 11-acre parcel of land. When the water level on the Otter Tail River is high, the flow can go fast enough between the blocks of the structure to create Class 3 rapids.
Big tree fell and just about closed the path. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Photo by Chad SmithPhoto by Chad Smith Photo by Chad Smith
Here is the link to my complete photo album from Broken Dam.
Timberwolves basketball. Are there any words in the Twin Cities sports market that have inspired more “meh?” Well, I decided it was time to get out of that mindset and try to look for positive things to talk about. Granted, Minnesota sports teams don’t make it easy to find optimism, but it’s got to be worth trying, right?
One of the most positive things I can think of off the floor is Glen Taylor has a sale agreement in place for the team. Reports says Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore are taking a little bit more of a hands-on approach to running Timberwolves basketball. Even though Taylor is said to still have the final say, it’s good to know that new ideas are forthcoming for the franchise.
I’m actually paying a little attention this year to the upcoming Timberwolves basketball season. Enjoying a bit of optimism.
The new schedule is out, and as I look at the returning players from last year, I’m finding a little more interest than I have in years. The starting five next year might actually be pretty decent. Look, I’m not predicting a march to the NBA finals, nor am I even predicting a playoff spot. I’d be happy with a legitimate run at a .500 win-loss mark. That’s how low my expectations are for Minnesota basketball after the last 20-plus years.
When the Timberwolves run this lineup next season it’s gonna be spooky
D’Angelo Russell Patrick Beverley Malik Beasley Anthony Edwards Karl-Anthony Towns
This starting lineup has a little more promise than we’ve seen in years.
I haven’t had much chance to research the young man the Wolves drafted out of Europe last year, but I am interested to see what the kid can bring to Timberwolves basketball. Of course, this is the one kid that I’m really excited to watch play ball next season.
I wasn’t happy they drafted Anthony Edwards at number one overall. Couldn’t be happier to admit I was wrong and am starting to love this kid.
So, to find out more about the upcoming season, I tracked down Evan with The Daily Wolves fan page on Twitter. We had a lot of basketball notes to get through.
Renovation is usually one of my favorite topics. It involves retrofitting old structures to make them new again. Those assignments involve me talking about and photographing old structures, something the urban explorer in me really enjoys.
The Harmony, Minnesota, Historical Society is kicking off a fund drive to renovate the old McGlaughlin Elevator, first built in 1879. They’ll host open house events July 3 and 4 from 11-2 each day. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The past and future stand guard at the entrance to Main Street in Harmony, Minnesota. The McMichael Grain Elevator was built in 1879 and stands on the west side of Main Street, where it meets the curve of State Highway 52. On the east side of the street is the much newer and more modern Harmony Agri-Services. A group of Harmony citizens is working to make sure the past and future of grain handling in the area watch over Main Street for many years to come.
Harmony sits smack dab in the middle of Minnesota farm country, so they needed elevators near railroads to process and store harvested grain, as well as move it into large freight cars for transportation. The A. & T. McMichael Grain Company of McGregor, Iowa, built the original elevator structure, one of several facilities they owned and operated in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and North and South Dakota. It included the elevators in Preston, Mabel, and Canton, Minnesota.
Farmers drove in here and dumped their grain for storage down through the floor grate in the old Harmony Elevator. The town’s Historical Society is kicking off a fund drive to raise money for renovations and turning it into a historical landmark. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Joel Wolsted bought the facility in 1914, and his family would hang on to it for a long time. He passed on the operation to his son, Ron Wolsted, who ran it as “Harmony Feed and Fuel.” As the new Harmony Agri-Services facility went up on the other side of the road, the old structure was gifted to the City of Harmony and the Harmony Area Historical Society by Jeff and Barb (Wolsted) Soma of Harmony Agri-Services in 2019.
Understandably, the then 140-year-old facility was in rough shape when the historical society first opened the doors. Ralph Beastrom is one of the historical society’s elevator committee chairs. With a laugh, he said the place was “full of stuff” when they looked inside it.
“We had a crew come in and clean the bins,” he recalled. “They went down inside the bins (which are long gone) and shoveled them all out. We also had a soda blaster come in and clean everything up inside the building. There were cobwebs, bird droppings, and dirt everywhere you looked in here.”
One of the leftover shovels that Harmony Elevator employees had to use to unload train cars by hand in the late 1800s when the elevator was built. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The local Falk Foundation gave the project a grant to help pay for the soda blasting. If you don’t know what that is, it’s like sandblasting, but workers use what’s essentially baking soda.
He said there are a few pieces of equipment left behind, including what are called “fanning mills” that sort the grain. Once the mills and other left-behind equipment get cleaned up, they will become part of the historical site.
Machinery left behind at the old elevator in Harmony, Minnesota. The local Historical Society is raising funds to renovate it and make it a historical landmark the town can be proud of. (Photo by Chad Smith)
“Our overall renovation plan is to work on the outside first,” Beastrom said. “We’ll do the siding and fix up the doors, so they work smoothly again. At some point, the inside will get renovated with some new lighting and some interpretive information. Whether we’ll do anything electronically, I’m not sure yet.
“We also need to get the windows taken care of, which will probably be our next high-dollar item,” he said. “Then, it’ll be time to work on the doors and close any openings that the swallows are using to get in and build their nests.”
The Harmony Historical Society is working with a preservationist in Spring Grove to do the work necessary to get the site into the Historical Registry. “We’ve already determined it’s eligible for the Registry, we just need to get the paperwork finished up,” he added. “That should be completed this year. It should open some doors for extra funding to get the renovation work done.
“Preservation architects have already told us the building is solid,” Beastrom added.
Beastrom, who also serves as Treasurer for the Harmony Historical Society, says the goal isn’t necessarily to restore it to the original condition. The goal is to preserve the building and make it look good because it “sits right at the entrance to our Main Street, and we want it to look good in that spot.”
Ralph Beastrom gave me a tour on a very windy and rainy day in Harmony. He’s helping to lead the effort to restore the old McGlaughlin Elevator and make it a historical landmark. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The Harmony Historical Society will host a couple of Open House Events over July third and Fourth from 11 am-2 pm each day. They’ll have the interior on display for the public, including some of the old machines and signage as well. The Open Houses will be a kickoff to a major fundraising push for the renovation project.
“We lost an entire year to COVID-19,” he added. “Nobody could come to meetings or get any work done. We hope that the Fourth of July will really get this project going in the right direction again.”
The total cost of the renvoatioon is estimated at $200,000, so the Historical Society needs help from the public. For more information, you can contact them at hahs@harmonytel.net. Feel free to reach out to the elevator renovation chairs, including Ralph Beastrom, Richard Kiehne, or Vicky Tribon.
Farm State of Mind in recent years can be summed up in one word: stress. While things are starting to turn around due to higher commodity prices, it doesn’t mean farmers are out of the woods yet.
In recognition of May as Mental Health Month, the American Farm Bureau Federation launched a comprehensive, easy-to-use online directory of resources for farmers, ranchers and their families who are experiencing stress and mental health challenges.
The American Farm Bureau launched the Farm State of Mind website to help farmers find the help they may need in dealing with farm stress.
The directory, which is on the Farm State of Mind website at farmstateofmind.org, features listings for crisis hotlines and support lines, counseling services, training opportunities, podcasts, videos, published articles and other resources in every U.S. state and Puerto Rico. Listings for crisis support, counseling and behavioral health resources that are available nationwide are also included.
“For far too long, farmers and ranchers have been trying to cope with increasing levels of stress on their own,” said AFBF President Zippy Duvall. “Our Farm State of Mind campaign is encouraging conversations about stress and mental health in farming and ranching communities. It is so important to spread the word that no one has to go it alone.
“This new online directory of stress and mental health resources in every state gives farmers, ranchers and rural communities a user-friendly, one-stop shop to find services in their area that can help them manage farm stress and find help for mental health concerns. Whether you’re looking for information about how to recognize and manage stress, trying to find counseling services in your area or are in need of crisis support, you can find help here.”
Mental health services are much needed in rural America because of stress on the farm that spills over into the local communities. The American Farm Bureau put together the Farm State of Mind website to help farmers find the assistance they need in the battle against on-the-farm stressors.
National research polls conducted and published by AFBF in 2019 and 2021 showed that a number of factors including financial issues and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic are impacting farmers’ mental health, highlighting the need to identify local resources that can help farmers and ranchers cope with chronic stress and mental health concerns.
The Farm State of Mind directory lists resources specifically geared toward farmers, ranchers and rural communities in states where these specific services are available, with additional listings for county and statewide mental health and other support services in every state. The listings can be filtered by state and type of resource, including hotlines, counseling services and published information.
AFBF partnered with the University of Georgia School of Social Work to research available resources across the U.S. and Puerto Rico and compile comprehensive information included in the directory.
Farmers and ranchers are encouraged to share the directory with their family, friends and community networks to ensure widespread awareness of the availability of these important resources.
Here’s a complete look at the main campus as it stands today.
“Anoka State Mental Hospital” – It’s been abandoned since 1999. Just saying the name evokes memories of every single scary movie you’ve watched in recent history, such as those Friday the 13th movies we used to watch as kids. However, like many other abandoned places in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, it seems to be coming back to life.
The abandoned Anoka State Mental Hospital is slowly being brought back to life. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Some of the buildings are still in rough shape, and those are easy to pick out by the plywood in all the windows. Others are in the process of being renovated, and a couple are used now as veterans’ homes. The first thing that jumped out at me was how BIG the campus is. Lots of large brick buildings got built in the shape of a half-circle. It’s enormous!
The brick buildings have every right to look like they’ve been through a lot: they have. A minnpost.com article says the fourth Minnesota state hospital for the insane opened in 1900. The place was quite different from the other three institutions; the Anoka State Mental Hospital was the first to be built in Minnesota according to the cottage plan. The goal was to reduce the institutional feel of the place for its chronic patients.
It was a bright and sunny day when I walked the grounds of the Anoka State Hospital grounds. (Photo by Chad Smith)
They say overcrowding was a big problem at Minnesota’s mental health institutions operating in Rochester, Fergus Falls, and St. Peter. To help alleviate the overcrowding problems, the planning commission chose 650 acres right near the scenic Rum River in Anoka for a fourth site.
Building the hospital got started in June of 1899, and the first 100 patients (all men) were transferred to the facility on March 14, 1900. The facility began to expand in 1905, adding several cottages, as well as farm and service buildings. By 1917, ten cottages, an auditorium, and a new administration formed in a semicircle at the completed facility.
However, like many mental institutions across the country, history wasn’t always a good thing for the facility. A dramatic series of articles exposed some horrible conditions at the hospital in the mid-1900s. State officials became determined to do something about the problem.
Still some work to do at the Anoka State Hospital. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The atlasobscura.com website says, on Halloween night in 1949, they held a bonfire on the grounds of the Anoka State Mental Hospital. It must have been a big fire as around 359 straitjackets, 196 cuffs, and 91 straps, all different forms of restraints used on the patients, were destroyed. Governor Luther Youngdahl and other officials used the event to show the world that the facility was moving toward more humane forms of treatment.
Conditions did improve for the patients, thanks to the development of new drugs and institutional reforms. Some unfortunate incidents that compromised community safety around the hospital took place here and there over the next several decades. The Anoka State Mental Hospital closed in 1999, and the patients got moved to a nearby facility.
They really don’t want people exploring in their buildings anymore. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Quarry Park and Nature Preserve was the latest stop on the 2021 “Explore Minnesota Before I Run Out of Gas Tour.” I’m not sure if that name is referring to my car or my body because, at my age, I run out of gas a little quicker than I used to, but I digress. I jumped in the car early on a Saturday morning because I could no longer sleep, so what was the point in trying?
Here are some of the highlights from the Quarry Park and Nature Preserve exploration. It’s a great place to do some hiking and picture taking! (Video by Chad Smith)
I spent a couple of hours looking for some abandoned places to explore, but that idea turned out to be a dud. I found myself in Waite Park, Minnesota, up by St. Cloud, and needing a pit stop. I AM 50, after all. Coming into town, I happened to glance to the right and noticed what looked like a couple of large gravel pits. Okay, they weren’t gravel, they were granite, but it’s the only thing I had stored in my brain to compare them to.
Minnesota parks like the Quarry Park and Nature Preserve in Waite Park are a ton of fun to see. I’ll warn you that while you can swim here, the water gets really deep in a hurry! The deepest one reached 116 feet. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Quarry Park and Nature Preserve is the full name of the place and covers nearly 700 acres of Stearns County land. At one time, it was an actual granite quarry known as the “Hundred Acres Quarry.” Granite is formed by intense heat within the earth and was the “foundation” of a major industry.
The history page on the park’s website points out that the first granite quarry in Central Minnesota was opened in 1863 by two Scotsmen. In the 130 years that followed, central Minnesota granite became an international commodity gracing several buildings located as far away as Singapore.
Roughly a century ago, a type of stone known as Saint Cloud Red Granite was quarried from land which is now part of the park. The Landmark Center and the James J. Hill House in St. Paul, Minnesota, both contain Saint Cloud Red Granite in their structures.
One thing I can’t figure out is whether or not these quarries are filled with stagnant water? I know there’s fish stocked in there (saw the ripples) so they’d need fresh water circulating through there, right? (Photo by Chad Smith)
Though private ownership of the land by local quarry companies continued through 1992, quarrying operations in the present park area quit for good in the mid-1950s. Companies operating quarries on the site including Holes Brothers, Delano Granite, Melrose Granite Company, Empire Quarry Company, and C.L. Atwood.
Here is the top of what they call the “Liberty Derrick,” a machine used to lift thousands of tons of granite back when the quarry was in operation and selling granite all over the world. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Over the years, the land gradually reverted to a more natural state. What did Poison Ivy tell Batman in the Arkham Knight game? “Nature always wins.” In 1992, Stearns County bought the site from the Cold Spring Granite Company and added the land to its County Park System. The park opened up on January 1, 1998.
I spent a solid two hours exploring the place, and I might have gotten through a third of the whole thing. You can hike there, go rock climbing, swimming, and even scuba diving in a couple of locations.
You can check out everything the park has to offer here.
Here’s the bottom of the Liberty Derrick. (Photo by Chad Smith)
As farmers prep for spring planting, don’t forget to upgrade the technology in your machinery. It’s every bit as important as a mechanical tune-up on your tractor. (Photo from blog.caseIH.com)
Technology is as important to today’s farm machinery as the nuts and bolts that held old-school equipment together back in the day. Maintaining your machines is a never-ending task when it comes to farming. When you’re lubricating moving parts, changing filters, or checking bearings, don’t forget to keep the technology that runs your machinery up to date.
Just like the typical equipment maintenance farmers all know and love (and occasionally hate), the technology the runs your machines need a regular tune-up as well. Technology advances quickly, and farmers have to be just as quick to keep up, which can sometimes be an overwhelming task.
Farming sure has changed a lot, hasn’t it? We know have to make sure the technology running those machines is as up to date as the machinery itself. (Photo from agupdate.com)
“As technology advances, you have to keep up to date with the software upgrades,” says Chris Ehman, Case/IH Aftermarket Solutions marketing manager. “That becomes even more true now as 3G is either going away or gone for good, depending on a farmer’s location. That’s why it’s even more important to get connected than before now.”
The new technology brought massive changes to the way farmers run their operations. For example, modern technology now gives farmers instant access to every machine in their fleet.
“The new technology in the CASE/IH Connection Portal frees up farmers to do their work, share data, and to manage their fleet wherever, whenever, and however they want,” he said. “It allows you to gather that data throughout the year and easily visualize what’s happening in your fields.”
The technology gives farmers a better grip on optimizing the performance of their fleet. Computerization helps Case IH owners of equipment made in 2010 or newer the chance to coordinate all of their machines and share their data to a central computer.
“Farmers can see each machine’s data as it’s running, including the location, the machine’s status, engine hours, idle time, acres per hour, and fuel levels,” he said, “so it helps them better track of what the operators are doing with the machines.
“Another way the technology helps farmers is with the security of their machines,” Ehman added. “It can set up geofences and curfews. With geo-fencing technology, you can set up pre-defined working areas for your machines and get alerts if they leave that specific area. And the curfew setting will alert you if the machine is working outside of a pre-defined timeframe. It gives you a lot of peace of mind at the end of every day.”
And if you’re one of those who don’t consider yourself “technologically efficient,” the software will help you know when it’s time to update. You’ll notice error codes and alerts that will get sent via the tech portal.
“That alert will help you understand what’s happening with your equipment out in the field,” Ehman said. “It will help you decide if it’s a simple setting that needs to be adjusted and can get fixed over the phone, or if a tech will instead need to make a trip to the field. If a tech support worker doesn’t need to come out and fix the issue, taking care of it over the phone can be a real time and money-saver.
“And if a tech is needed, they’ll have a much better understanding of what the issue is and what’s needed to fix it,” he added. “That makes the repair move at a quicker pace and gets the machinery back into operation and making money for the farmer. Quicker repairs, less money, and more uptime is always a good thing.”
At the end of the day, Ehman said farming is one of the most challenging occupations in the country. There’s a lot at stake and many difficult decisions to make. The agricultural economy has struggled in recent years, and farmers need success this year without question.
“A profitable operation is possible, and these new technologies help make that happen,” he said. “You don’t have to wait to benefit from the advantages of the new technologies. The equipment you already own can be capable of so much more than you may realize.”
Data protection is a big deal for farmers, and Ehman says companies like Case IH are taking good care of that vital information. The company is upfront in saying that farmer’s data belongs to each individual farmer and that farmer alone.
“For our dealers and our partners to access that data, they have to get permission from the farmers,” Ehman said. “That is a move in the right direction for Case IH as a company and a brand.
“The technology we use to analyze that data has come a long way as well,” he adds. “We’ve gotten much better at collecting and aggregating the data from multiple machines on the operation, and then overlaying that with yield data and field maps to allow farmers to see all the conditions that may be affecting their yield. It’s moving past the machinery data and into more of the farming and agronomic data.”
Any farmer can then use that data to help improve their yields and return on investment. A 4G update will get farmers into the Case IH Connect Portal with an AFS Connect subscription. That will let farmers take advantage of the new 4G technology and the benefits that come with it.
