Exciting News about Inventors in Today’s Mail

“Show Me” magazine arrived in today’s mail with an interesting article about innovative farmers.

The winter edition of Missouri Farm Bureau’s “Show Me” magazine arrived today and includes three Missouri inventors on pages 8-10 describing how they built the tools they needed when they couldn’t find them commercially.

“Many great ideas for gadgets and gizmos have become a reality because a farmer saw a way to make a job easier,” says staff writer Jenna Hurty. “To focus on what farmers can do with a great thought and some tools, we found three Farm Bureau members who have taken their ideas beyond their farms to benefit others.”

It’s exciting to see the WaterBuck Pump featured alongside these resourceful farm inventions in Jenna’s story, “More Than Baling Wire and Duct Tape: Going Beyond Fix-It-Up with Farmer Ingenuity.”

Fellow innovators Vernon Zerr and son, Jeff, of Montgomery City, Mo., are now in the custom corn planter business — entirely by accident. When they couldn’t sell a refurbished eight-row planter after two years of advertising it, they brought it out to the workshop, got creative with the cutting torch, and made the implement into a six-row planter. After advertising it again, Vernon and Jeff sold their improvised narrow planter in one day, discovering a market for equipment no longer manufactured.

How exciting to see the WaterBuck Pump featured alongside farm inventions

Farmer Kevin Markt was bold enough to cut a 12-row corn header in half to make a machine that he says “smiles or frowns” to hug rugged Oregon County, Mo., terrain. His patented invention, the Split-Flex Corn Head, allows farmers to get more done in less trips through the field. Since cutting into his first corn header five years ago, Kevin has expanded to 20-row headers with a vertical flex of more than 23 inches.

Jenna contacted us about the story last July, as magazines generally work months in advance of a feature. Since then, more improvements have been made, and now the grandmother Darren spoke about who pumped 5 gallons in one minute with the WaterBuck Pump can pump 7 gallons per minute. Darren’s output also increased.

And, to tie it all together, the story includes information on page 10 about the early days of baling wire, duct tape and WD-40. Throw in a pair of pliers and pocket knife, and you’ve got the best repair kit around.

Click here to read a pdf of the entire article in the Winter 2014 edition of Show Me magazine. Isn’t it great to see such ingenuity originating in Missouri instead of being imported from overseas?