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Four years ago, Valley Irrigation introduced its X-Tec advanced drive motor, which uses FastPass technology to cut the time required for center pivot rotation in half—from approximately eight hours to four hours. For those who use a pivot for chemical or fertilizer applications, this speed can play an important role in a limited application window.

"Two years ago, one of our big potato grower customers came to us and said,'We need to be able to complete a revolution in 90 minutes, what can you do?' Our engineering team started working within four months , We run four test machines on their farm,” explained Jake Hinrichsen, by-product manager at Valley Irrigation. "With this, we launched the new X-Tec HS. It will set off a revolution in 90 minutes. With 11.2X38 tires, you see a speed of about 95 feet per minute."

As Hinrichsen demonstrated earlier this month with the X-Tec HS pivot at Husker Harvest Days in Grand Island, Nebraska, this has to do with brisk walking speed. He explained that the X-Tec HS can achieve these speeds thanks to a 3-horsepower motor that works with Yaskawa variable frequency drives (VFD) and an inverter that can reach up to 343 revolutions per minute. The center gear ratio has also been reduced to achieve this speed.

"Really, this allows growers to take a new level of chemical disinfection that they could not do before. It allows this particular customer to cancel any aerial or ground rig application. All the fungicides they apply in the air, they can now use X -Tec HS to apply. This also means they don’t have to wait for the applicator to come out to spray.”

Many irrigation machines are used to conveniently start or stop their central pivot at the push of a button, and receive an alarm when the machine stops. Now, through the machine diagnosis in Valley 365, the irrigator can pinpoint the location of the pivot failure. Preston Parmley, product manager of Valley Irrigation, explained that Machine Diagnostics can be installed on any existing Valley center pivot, or on a competitor's machine equipped with a Valley electronic conversion device. It works through a series of sensors mounted on the entire pivot. These sensors provide information to the Valley Icon smart panel, which is then sent to Valley 365 via Icon Link.

"With Valley 365, growers will be alerted when the machine has problems related to tower alignment, tire pressure, water pressure, and motors and gearboxes, and they will also be provided with a location," Pamley said. "The grower will be able to check Valley 365 and see that Tower 2 is not aligned, which may save him hours to find out where the problem is. This helps maximize uptime."

Parmley added that machine diagnostics can also receive fault detection alarms about Valley's X-Tec drives through the tower monitoring board installed in the drive housing.

"We are able to communicate with the X-Tec drive to monitor its status and health, and get very detailed diagnostic information," he said. "Understanding those specific failures that occur with X-Tec drives can help minimize troubleshooting downtime when paired with that product."

Until recently, pivot corners were still one of the few areas where it is difficult to irrigate evenly. This year, Valley launched EnCompass, which uses GPS data to automatically adjust corner nozzle controls in real time to help solve this problem.

"Historically, you really have to fine-tune the irrigation in the corners. You turn on the sprinkler group, and you have to fine-tune to get even sprinkler coverage," Pamley said. "With EnCompass, we are simplifying and enhancing the uniformity of spraying. Users can load GPS paths and machine-specific characteristics, and it will pulse individual nozzles instead of nozzle groups to ensure the best spray uniformity in the field Degrees. We are happy to make the uniformity coefficient under the angular span close to the uniformity level we are accustomed to under the pivot span."

EnCompass automatically adjusts, and the angle arm nozzle pulses open and close to provide the precise flow required on site.

"It uses our VRI-iS, which is controlled by a separate sprinkler for variable rate irrigation," Parmley added. "The hardware we use is the same as that used on the VRI-iS product line, which allows us to perform individual sprinkler control over the corner span."

Last year, Valley Irrigation announced the acquisition of Brazil-based Solbras, a solar energy solution provider now known as Valmont Solar. Now, with this acquisition, Valley announces the expansion of Solar Solutions in the United States

"A lot of interest has been aroused," said Haime Dias, Valmont's North American Solar Solutions Director and Business Line Manager. "We bought Solbras in Brazil and used our existing network to sell solar solutions in Brazil in 2020. We did very well in Brazil in 2020 and 2021, so we thought,'Why not bring it to What about the American farmers here?'"

Valley’s solar energy solutions and services include everything that growers need to start using solar energy for operations: distributed photovoltaic (PV) energy, converting light into electricity; engineering design and approval of detailed technical projects; Consultation for new photovoltaic installations. In addition, every solar installation in Valley provides remote monitoring capabilities through Valley 365. Valley provides fixed and movable versions of solar panels. Each 1×2 meter panel is 500 watts.

"Only a quarter of a pivot angle-about 6 acres-can generate 3 megawatts of electricity," Dias said. "The power at that corner is 30 times the power you need to power a fulcrum."

Dias added that the average return on investment of solar panels is 5 to 6 years-and these solar panels have a design life of 25 years.

"Valley really hopes to integrate these in the next few months and start shipping our first batch of products," he said. "This is the beginning. There is still a lot to do in the future."

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