Steve Quaile of Brodie Ag found a few minutes away from speaking with current and potential customers to talk about the Fareson mixing wagon he is standing beside, as well as all the other things that Brodie Ag has to offer. Tinkess Photo
OTTAWA – Brodie Ag and Industrial has become a regular at the Ottawa Valley Seed Growers Farm show, which wrapped up in mid-March. With a location on Highway 138 in Moose Creek, for many they are the place to go when looking for a new feed mixer, or if they have something that needs repair.
Steve Quaile took time to speak with AgriNews about some of the products and technology that are either currently on hand, or on the horizon. In agriculture as in most things in life, the only real constant is change.
The biggest new thing will be the Fareson TMR mixers (self-loaders) and telehandler lifts. There are electric ones which will be coming in early spring 2026,” said Quaile. “Those are really the two new technologies coming.
“Other things like scale heads and feed management software will see improvements too.”
One valuable characteristic is the ability to modify existing equipment in some cases, so that it can gain greater capabilities. “We’ve been doing a lot of replacement on scale heads on older mixers to get Bluetooth capability, where you can have it onto a tablet or onto your phone,” said Quaile. “And then I would just have feed management software to run it. I had 2 customers today on that. We have the FD1 software set up with the tablet that goes in the loader.”
There is a lot of discussion through industry of all kinds with words like “autonomous” and “robotics” being tossed around. For various reasons some find the ideas interesting, others not so much. “It’s at the stage that 15 years ago with robot milkers, and many people said, “We don’t need that,” said Quaile. “We see it coming, but I think we’re still at the very beginning stage of robot feeding, but you do see it. There are some new barns being built right now and they are putting them in. They have their challenges just like anything else.”
Feed management though, that is an idea whose time is now. “That’s where we’re going,” said Quaile. “This is out next huge step in the feeding industry is feed management, knowing how much inventory you have. Before the farmer would go to his silo and guess if he had enough for the rest of the year. Now you know how much is being taken out and when. And having these Bluetooth scale heads, the rations are in them, and your next feeder can come in and sign on and the rations there. All the adjustments can be made, sitting on your couch.
It for sure helps with consistency of the rations, instead of having everything done manually.”
Getting back to electric, Quaile is more optimistic about how successful that will be in an agriculture context. “With EV’s (electric vehicles) I don’t think our infrastructure in Canada is great, but when it doesn’t leave the barn and it is plugged in or 85 per cent of its life, that’s different.
“You do your three-four mixes a day, plug it in. Three-four mixes the next day, plug it in.”
If you want to learn more about Brodie Ag and what they have to offer, they are located at 1760 Highway 138, Moose Creek, Ontario. They are open Monday-Friday from 7:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. and closed on weekends, except for emergency service.
