Roaming the trade floor of any farm show can yield a few gems. Farm Progress found a couple during Agritechnica that show innovation in new ways. Neither are in the North American market, though for the first item below, that could change.

Water at work

Dosing and mixing fertilizers and crop protection products into irrigation lines requires an irrigation injector. The new Mixtron injector line is a dosing and mixing hydraulic system installed directly in the water supply line. This allows the user to get the right mix, regardless of changes in flow or pressure.

Water flow activates the injector, and the additive is pulled into the system at the proper dose and mixed in a solution, which is then pushed downstream into the irrigation system. The company has smaller injectors suitable for drip systems and lower-pressure approaches. However, the unit shown is a higher-volume prototype that the company will offer to the market in 2020.

You can learn more about the system at mixtron.it/en.

MULTIPOWER: This irrigation engine-generator gets a boost from the solar panels. It’s not for North America, but is an interesting idea.

Power choices

It stops a show visitor short. Why are there solar panels on top of a combination gen-set and diesel irrigation power unit? Turns out it can help with some efficiency, and for this Lampo Green system from Euromacchine, there are other benefits to the design. The portable unit generates 30 kilowatts of power with its diesel engine, but the solar panels generate 3 kW, which is a 10% boost, or savings, in fuel use. In addition, those solar panels require an electrical connection, which the designers have used to allow a user to hook the unit to electric power if it’s available at some pumping points.

It’s a kind of multipower machine; and as more companies seek greater efficiencies, there could be more approaches like this. One person on the stand admitted it was just 10% in added power, but “still 10%,” so every little bit helps. Learn more at Euromacchine’s Lampo Green webpage (it’s in English).