Keeping track

I once counted up all the tires in use on equipment around the farm. Even though I knew each machine and how many tires were on it, when I consciously tallied the total number I had to say, “Wow. That’s a lot”. The same was true for the number of engines, large and small, that […] Read more

An Autonomous Greenbot tractor with attached roto-tiller on display at Agritechnica. 


Heading toward autonomy

On display at Agritechnica: a driverless Dutch-built tractor hits the market

General purpose, completely autonomous (driverless) tractors may be the holy grail of farm equipment design. And over the past few years a wide variety of companies have offered farmers enticing glimpses of what the future may hold in that area. There have been a number of limited-use robotic machines introduced to do specific tasks on […] Read more


The UniCrawler is designed to provide extra floatation for wheeled trailers moving across soft fields.

UniCrawler adds more floatation

German manufacturer uses tracked carrier to keep trailers out of the mud

Rubber track systems have been gaining a lot of interest in all areas of farm machinery design lately. But one German manufacturer, Annaburger, has taken the application of tracks a step beyond the usual tires-to-tracks conversion concept and created a floating chassis, which is designed to carry wheeled trailers across soft terrain. Tractor-drawn trailers are […] Read more

Day it forward

It seems the people at General Motors are a happy bunch these days. I suppose they should be. 2015 was good to them. The company is on its way to setting a record in net sales for this fiscal year. A big jump in the number of Silverados driving off dealer lots helped make that […] Read more


The company won a Silver Innovation award for its quick-change ballasting system at Agritechnica 2015.

John Deere debuts new EZ Ballast

A quick-attach system allows five second ballast adjustments on 7R tractors

John Deere took home a Silver Innovation award at Agritechnica this year for its newest idea in tractor ballasting, intended to make getting the right amount of weight on each axle a much simpler job. Attaching and removing wheel weights is so difficult, no one really bothers touching them once they’re bolted on. But there […] Read more

This concept model displayed at Agritechnica represents the design direction Czech tractor manufacturer Zetor plans to take its tractor line.

Zetor teams with Pininfarina

Any automotive enthusiast worth his salt will instantly recognize the name Pininfarina, the famous Italian design studio whose artistic vision has helped create many classic car bodies. A lot of them have graced the world’s premiere auto shows. This year, however, one of their designs is being worn by a tractor and featured at Germany’s […] Read more


Where do you get your information?

Many years ago I stopped listening to talk radio, those channels that invite people to call in by the dozens and express their opinions on some topic or another. I didn’t stop listening because I don’t want to hear other opinions on important things. It’s just that I’d rather hear informed opinions, and there are […] Read more

It’s been a few years since Deere’s 9330 and its contemporary competitors rolled off assembly lines. They’re now an option for farmers looking for lower-cost, late-model, pre-emissions horsepower.

Comparison shopping for late model tractors

We review a sample of late-model 300 to 400 hp tractors for performance and pricing

This year a lot of buyers have chosen to take advantage of the current good selection of cheaper, used, pre-emissions tractors rather than buying new machines. With so much activity in the used equipment market, Grainews decided to take a look at a few of the choices out there for late-model machines. So, we went […] Read more


The SW 4014 bale wrapper from Kuhn uses an autoload feature which allows the tractor to continue moving while the bale is loaded, wrapped and set back down.

Kuhn debuts high-speed bale wrapper

The SW 4014 offers non-stop field travel and can wrap square or round bales

Engineers at Kuhn must be busy clearing wall space in their offices to hang all the awards the company’s new SW 4014 bale wrapper has picked up lately. When the company displayed it at Germany’s Agritechnica in November it raked in a Silver Innovation award. Earlier in the year it won an AE50 award here […] Read more

Case IH’s newest tillage offering is the True-Tandem 375 disc, available in working widths up to 37 feet.

Case IH introduces the True-Tandem 375

New disc harrow lets farmers configure the implement to meet their needs

For those who want to continue to use — or return to using — tillage in their operation, Case IH has just introduced a new tandem disc model, the True-Tandem 375, which gives growers another tillage tool to consider when shopping for an implement. Despite the fact there is certainly a lot to choose from […] Read more