Nexat developers hope machine will revolutionize farming

Invention that can prep soil, plant, spray and harvest being tested in Edmunds County

The Nexat machine with the planting application is being used to plant in Edmunds County. (Aberdeen Insider photo by Scott Waltman)

EDMUNDS COUNTY — A machine that could drastically change the way farmers operate is planting in fields southwest of Aberdeen.

It’s called Nexat and it can be used for any crop-related job in a field — preparing the soil, planting, spraying and harvesting.

Nexat is manufactured by the German company Kalverkamp Innovation. Kalverkamp’s North American offshoot Terrakamp plans to unveil the machine to the U.S. market at the Farm Progress Show, which begins Aug. 31 in Decatur, Ill.

The actual Nexat unit is designed more like a locomotive than a tractor, said Joseph Jandrisch, a primary investor in Kalverkamp and CEO of Terrakamp.

It has an electric drive motor that’s fueled by a diesel engine, though Nexat is working on a hydrogen engine, he said. The drive regulates the amount of power fed to the motor. It doesn’t have a transmission.

Actually, Nexat has two motors — 550 horsepower each for a total of 1,100.

And on its own the unit can do … well, not much.

But there are applications that can be attached for different tasks.

Near Onaka, the planter application has been rolling through fields precisely dropping seeds and dry nitrogen in the dirt. The machine also pretreats seeds as it moves along.

The corn and soybeans will later be sprayed with wet nitrogen before they are harvested in the fall.

Nexat will plant between 2,000 and 2,500 acres of TDO Farms land this spring, said Jandrisch and Jason Faulkner, Terrakamp’s director of field operations in North America.

TDO Farms, based in Aberdeen, is owned by the Ochsner family and was founded by Todd Ochsner.

Nexat could alter the way the world farms

“We’re going to change the way the world farms,” Jandrisch said.

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