Ennis Agri Tech

Midwest Prepares for Massive Spring Flooding One of the snowiest winters on record for the Midwest and northern U.S. Plains have crop watchers worried about a repeat of the massive flooding that hit the major U.S. grain producing region in 2008. Meteorologists report that accumulated precipitation this winter through the end of February ranged from 125 percent of normal to well over 200 percent for the region of northern Iowa into the southern two-thirds of Minnesota and westward to the Dakotas

U.S. and state officials are preparing for spring floods as forecasters predict moderate to major flooding for the region. In 2008, heavy rains in the northern Midwest in June and July caused tributaries into the Mississippi River watershed to overflow, flooding tens of millions of acres of cropland in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. This year, the timing of rains and how quickly floodwaters recede will hold the key to how many acres need replanting. (Insurance Journal, March 7, 2011)

Candice Engler, a senior product engineer for Deere & Company and a student in MIT’s SDM program, discovered her affinity for engineering while growing up on a 2,800-acre farm in Ankeny, Iowa. Each morning, her father maneuvered a tractor through rows of corn and soybeans. One day, he asked her to help him construct a sprayer that would apply pesticides to the crops to control weeds and insects.

Some 12-year-olds might have responded by scratching their heads, but Engler picked up a tape measure and jumped right in. Working with her father inside the family’s barn, she then cut and welded steel tubes and calculated the angles to mount the hydraulic cylinders. After a month of labor, she and her father attached a working, three-point sprayer to the tractor’s hitch.

“The sprayer we designed is an example of a complex system,” Engler said. “It included a mechanical support structure to keep everything in place, a solution system to store and distribute the chemicals and a hydraulic system to fold the sprayer for road transportation.”

Candice and Ben Engler with their wedding party in front of a
field of soybeans.
Photo credit: Katie McDonald Photography
Engler believes that “every good farmer is a good tinkerer” and to augment her interest in “tinkering” — applying math and science concepts to improve agricultural systems — Engler studied biosystems engineering at Oklahoma State University. While in the classroom, she learned new ways of mechanizing agricultural processes and thought about how she could apply them to her own farm. “Knowledge often travels in both directions between the fields of farming and engineering,” Engler said.

After graduating with a BS in 2004, Engler soon went to work for Deere & Company as a manufacturing engineer. She started by streamlining the production of grain drills, which were stamped, assembled, painted, and shipped by four separate departments. Rising quickly within the company, Engler soon turned her focus to software and systems architecture. As her responsibilities changed, so did her perspective.

This is an applied economics degree which gives students training in microeconomics and quantitative methods which will allow them to analyse issues and problems in agriculture.

The degree includes scope to undertake science options through all four years. This recognises that many issues require an interdisciplinary knowledge which combines natural and social sciences.