Dual-Purpose Grain Farming Equipment
Approved for funding through ERA’s Food, Farming, and Forestry Challenge in 2021, the project manufactured and tested a dual-purpose grain cart and seed tender unit for the grain farming industry. By project completion in 2023, the Opti-Cart was able to be used in both seeding and harvest operations.
Optimal Agriculture Equipment Ltd developed a dual-purpose grain cart/seed tender unit for the grain farming industry. The Opti-Cart acts as two pieces of farm equipment, a grain cart in fall harvest and seed tender in spring to deliver seed and fertilizer to a seeding tool, increasing efficiency. The equipment aims to decrease seed filling times, increasing seeding capacity, and reduce fuel consumption thereby reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by displacing diesel fuel. The multi-purpose unit addresses inefficiencies and downtime in the seeding process, improving operational time for the farmer.
Opti-Cart Increases Seeding Efficiency, Realizes Marginal Fuel Savings
During the project period, two new units were manufactured, and one unit was tested and verified by end-users. The technology to blow out augers was successfully developed, blowing out product when switching from seed to fertilizer. As well, the project developed efficient and properly functioning software and hardware to control the flow of product out of the cart. The project proved faster fill times to multiple units and to seed more acres per day, although lower fuel consumption was marginal and did not significantly reduce GHG emissions. Manufacturing to a more cost-efficient process was unable to be achieved, hindering commercialization activities.
What’s next?
Despite the increased efficiency for farmers during spring seeding, the Opti-Cart has not reached full commercialization. Optimal Agriculture Equipment Ltd will continue to promote the built units to farmers through their internal sales team. Additionally, intends to communicate with Canadian manufacturers to solve production cost issues.