DES MOINES, IOWA — The future of farming is on display at Wells Fargo Arena in downtown Des Moines at the Iowa Ag Expo this week. The Expo uses every part of this complex.

“We have a full house. We use everything here at the Iowa Events center. We have 110 new exhibitors this year,” said Tom Junge, manager of the event for the past 30 years. “A lot of stuff in electronics, the drones are big, some un-maned vehicles.” 

The show has several exhibitors with drone technology. Jorden Kuntz of Biosphere Drone Solutions in Dyersville came to show some drones used for spraying, and other things.

 “A big thing is on those drones you cover a lot more acres you’re getting up close to 40 acres per hour,” said Kuntz. “You can spray with it new nozzle types that are on it so we’re not pressurizing nozzles anymore it’s centrifuge, it’s actually spinning it out like a disc.”

His firm is also selling a four wheeled drone vehicle which cam mow, or carry 400 pounds.

Another company called Agri-Brink moved to Iowa from Canada in October to develop their new system which can let air out of tires on farm equipment to minimize compaction on the soil, and then re-air the tires to their road-worthy pressure,

“So what the whole premise is to maximize the tires, which are designed to go low pressure at a slow speed in the field, depending on how much weight is on, once you start moving, quicker down the road you have to inflate that tire,” said Jake Kraayenbrink, the founder of Agri-Brink Founder.