SWOH | Mitchco - 5/4/2024 13:40
We still plant with a 6 row, 30". The most advanced electronic thing we have is a Cruizer II in the sprayer tractor. Every operation here could be done without any electric at all. The sprayer would take a few modifications, but could be done. Half the tractors could be started rolling down a hill. The others would need an air or spring starter.
I used to work with a guy that was convinced that the sun was going to send out solar flares that would wipe out the satellites orbiting the earth and cause EMP issues on the surface of the planet. He also had the whole scenario figured out of the end if mankind as we know it would cease to exist. Part of his scenario was the lack of growing food to feed the world because of so many farmers would be out of business with out modern electronics and plain electricity.
I've had dreams of building and armageddon truck ever since watching the movie "the day after" in school when it came out. My truck will be running after an EMP with no problem.
How many on here could farm if electronics were suddenly useless?
Mitchco
Of course we could still farm without electronics. Same as it’s always been, you put a seed in the ground and nature doesn’t need electronics. But if electronics were suddenly useless, I think there would be so much chaos everywhere else that it wouldn’t really matter. I think it’s a silly thing to think about. Most farmers I know adapt pretty well. It wouldn’t be an instant adaptation but we’d figure it out. I don’t believe we’d be farming anywhere to the scale we do now, though. The bigger question would be, how many farmers would want to farm without electronics.
I agree with Ed, I was using auto steer doing some ripping in the fall a few years ago with a newer Fendt. It was boring. Almost too easy. You set everything up and it gets to the end of the pass, you hit one button, slows down a little, picks it up, you turn it around a little… hit one button, it lines you back up, puts it down, speeds back up, and you wait until the other end. I grew up with getting to the end, throwing the lever while whipping it around, trying to keyhole it to get lined back up and throwing the lever to put it back down and then concentrate on trying to keep the line straight. And I got pretty good at it as a teenager. All the electronic stuff makes it easy until something doesn’t work, then it’s a nightmare for me. But I like information. I like the monitors. I like the new stuff compared to trying to see the Redballs for fertilizer and blinky lights on a Dickey John. I can spray using speed, pressure, the right tips, and foam. I don’t really want to go back to that though. But I could still do it. I can follow a planter marker and we still have chain drives on all the planters except one. Still have a 3020, 4020, 4240, Cockshutt 30 and 40, and a Farmall A. Still have an 86 K10. But I don’t think any of that will matter if the rest of the world doesn’t have electronic devices. |
Why our rural communities are shrinking.
