Throughout the course of the past few months, Inco Ag Irrigation has worked in part with several other companies to bring new technology to UTM.
The Reinke Electrogator II, a pivot irrigation system, officially began running on the UTM Farm on Tuesday, Sept. 9. The donation of the system will allow UTM Agriculture students the opportunity to achieve hands-on experience in a wide variety of aspects.
“The unit that we have is a GPS-equipped irrigation unit; it is a very technologically advanced unit,” said Dr. Joey Mehlhorn, interim chair of the Department of Agriculture, Geosciences, and Natural Resources.
Because UTM’s farm is used as a teaching farm, the addition of the pivot will be able to provide a new means of learning for a variety of students and majors within the department.
“Our students get to understand how [the pivot] works; it works really well with understanding about precision agriculture and understanding about the technologically advanced nature of agriculture,” said Mehlhorn.
The pivot will be used as a tool in several courses taught in the Agriculture Department.
“[The pivot] will be incorporated into plant science courses; it will [also] be used in agriculture engineering technology courses. We have a new course on precision agriculture, so [the system] will certainly be a piece of that class for sure. I’m sure all the plant science classes will use it,” Mehlhorn said.
Because the system is so much more advanced than anything UTM students have been exposed to in the classroom, the pivot will be able to increase students’ knowledge base.
“It is really high tech so it does have a great teaching aspect to it and that is the exciting piece of it. It will improve what our students know how to do,” Mehlhorn said.
The pivot is set up on a wireless system so students can also see how technololgy is advancing in the field.
“The unit also runs on a wireless subscription service. We can take a class out and show them how you can turn it on or off with your cell phone or how I can change it and make it do something different and have it report back to me,” Mehlhorn said.
When Chuck Doss, co-owner of Inco Ag Irrigation and Inco Well Services, decided on UTM, there were a few reasons backing his decision.
“I’m an alumnus, my sister is an alumna, my brother is an alumnus, my wife is an alumna, my dad is an alumnus, Martin has meant a lot to me and my family and I wanted to give back when I could,” Doss said. “I wanted to give the opportunity for agriculture students to work on pivots and for us to develop a relationship with them so that in the future if they go back to their family farm or are in the agriculture industry then they will know Reinke, they will know Inco Ag and Well Service and will be familiar with them.”
The estimated overall cost of the donation was around $100,000. Several companies joined in the donation process.
“It wasn’t just [Inco Ag Irrigation] who donated. Of course, Inco Ag Irrigation which is the irrigation company, Inco Well Services donated the well, CAM Electric out of Union City donated all the electrical supplies and labor, National Pump donated the pump equipment for the well and Reinke donated the pivot itself,” Doss said.
The addition of the pivot to the teaching farm is beneficial to not only students, but the university itself. With UTM being a production farm, the addition of the pivot will most likely increase crop yields, says Mehlhorn.
“The biggest [benefit] for us at our teaching farm is the ability to do irrigated versus non-irrigated trial research for crops; in the past, we’ve only been able to do dry land or non-irrigated trials. These would be trials of corn, wheat, soybeans or anything else we are doing; this is going to add a huge component to us to allow us to do this … hopefully it is going to lead to a lot of good success for us,”Mehlhorn said. “From a purely production agriculture standpoint, it increases our yields and that is a positive thing for us.”
Doss says the donation would most likely not have been possible without the employees at Inco Ag Irrigation. Over the last year, Reinke set a goal for the company to sell at least 15 pivots; the company sold a total of 63 units.
“I would imagine that had a pretty good bit of influence on [Reinke’s decision to donate,]” Doss said.
Doss and Richie Cash co-own Ag Inco Irrigation. Doss, Cash, Jim Kelley and Richard Sprayberry co-own Inco Well Services.
