The Rural Voice, 1993-09, Page 24the Ontario Plowmen's Association
said with the amalgamation of many
companies, the absence of Case IH
and John Deere at the company level
makes a big dent in the show and
could be a concern to farmers. "I
think that farmers look for them to be
there because these companies are
major equipment producers." In an
effort to attract these companies, as
well as farmers, back, this year's
committee wanted to put on a
"show".
"We wanted to put the machines
back in the field to do the job they're
intended to do and give people an
opportunity to sec them do their job,"
says Wilton, summing up the premise
behind the idea of Machines in
Motion. It's an idea that literally
stems from the back-
yards of many people in
the committee, them-
selves farmers and
equipment dealers who
work with machines on a
daily basis. Wilton him-
self is a farmer, special-
izing in beef with a cow
calf operation. He also
cash crops and is a Field
Inspector with the Onta-
rio Soil and Crop Im-
provement Association.
¶oday
he's glad to
be talking. He has
hay to cut but the
intense heat makes this
an unappealing chore.
As we continue to
discuss the match, a member of the
Machines in Motion committee,
David Inglis, drives up. He's a dairy
farmer from north of Walkerton
who's lived in Bruce county all his
life and has worked with the Ontario
Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
When he was approached to join the
committee, he was immediately
interested in the concept. "I know
there arc people who have seen the
machines parked and wished they
could see it work. So now they'll be
able to follow the machines out to the
field to watch the demonstrations."
Another committee member, Harry
Biermans, says as a cash cropper, he
feels seeing machinery in use is a
necessity before purchasing. "I feel
farmers need to compare equipment
on a Targe scale. Maybe they've
always had a John Deere and never
had the opportunity to see what the
competition is doing to see if they
may have something better."
i D uoyed by the excitement of
being involved in a new event
and armed with a working
knowledge of machines and field
work, the committee members knew
what they wanted to accomplish but
were unsure of how to put the idea in
motion. So a few members travelled
to the United States Progress Show, a
major farm event featuring close to
1,000 acres of farm machinery
demonstrations. Some members
attended the show three times to get a
better understanding of the mechanics
of hosting a machinery show. Then
when the members met again, there
was no limit to the ideas and plans
Along with the well-known
machines such as Ford, Kubota,
Polaris and New Holland, dealers are
entering machines Wilton hasn't even
heard of. There's a crop shredder by
Loftness, a landtracker from Blu Jet,
a Krause no -till drill, a Till -Tech
coulter caddy, a Row Tech
rowbuster, a Tanco bale wrapper, a
Balemaster round bale shredder, a
Fransgard skidding winch and other
machines from such companies as
Krone, Honeybee, Aer-way and Poly -
Last. Though a few of the machines
are top-of-the-line models, most are
representative of the types of
equipment in use by farms across the
province. Most of the corn heads are
six rows while the bean heads
average 15 feet. "We wanted to try
7),
"We wanted to put the machines back in the field to do the job they're
intended to do and give people an opportunity to see them do their job,"
says Bruce Wilton.
20 BRUCE COUNTY I.P.M. EDITION
the committee was willing to tackle.
"There was no problem getting
ideas," recalls Wilton. "But we had
to scale down our plans due to the
availability of land."
Scaled down it may be, but the
Machines in Motion is taking up 350
acres of land (some land is
overlapped) and incorporating
machines from dose to 50 dealers in
the county. Unfortunately, despite
the original intent, Case IH and John
Deere still haven't come back to the
show, but the participation from local
dealers has made this goal
unnecessary, says Wilton. "The local
dealerships have been very
supportive and are splitting up the
load. Where one puts in a combine,
another will demonstrate planting
equipment in an effort to avoid the
overlap."
to meet the needs of
the local farmer and the
local dealer," says
Wilton while Inglis
adds that it wouldn't be
to the dealer's advant-
age to bring in a huge
piece of machinery no
one could afford to
buy. Besides, there's
not enough land at the
match to support mas-
sive machines. Should
one 12 -row combine
sweep through the
fields, the demonstra-
tions would be over in
minutes.
he harvesting
Tportion of Mach-
ines in Motion,
featuring the ever popular combines,
will be a huge draw, believes Wilton.
On Tuesday and Wednesday of the
match, the 90 acres of soybeans will
be harvested. "There'll be five
different combines in the field at the
same time and people will be able to
walk alongside the machines during
the demonstration to have a look at
the process," says Wilton. Then,
observers will get a chance to see the
end product as it's dumped into
waiting bins. "Mainly, farmers will
be interested in seeing the results of
what was combined," says Inglis.
Thursday's corn demonstration
will be similar. It's the corn fields
that reveal just how much pre-
planning was required to present the
Machines in Motion portion of the
plowing match. Usually a late fall