Potato Grower

July 2016

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WWW.POTATOGROWER.COM 21 A griculture, since the very beginning, has been an industry dependent on innovation. Across the millennia, the guy who took the initiative to experiment and take chances in his quest for better equipment, better irrigation and better soil was the guy ultimately rewarded with better crops. Though steeped in tradition, agriculture nevertheless remains the industry perhaps most dependent on constantly changing the status quo. That ancient, entrepreneurial spirit of non-conformity inspired Henry Krause in 1916 to construct his first one-way disc plow in the small shop on his western Kansas farm. A century later, Kuhn Krause Inc. continues to provide growers with some of the best tillage equipment on the market. Building on the original Henry Krause created his one-way disc plow with the intention of reducing wind erosion by leaving more residue on the soil surface than the plows that were then available. (The company contends that Henry's plow was the first-ever soil conservation tillage tool.) The experiment was a success on his farm, and before long Henry was building plows for the neighbors' operations and hearing reports of 100-acre-a-day efficiency. Drought hit the area from 1917 to 1919, and with his plow business steadily growing, Henry Krause had phased himself out of the farming game completely by 1924. Over the next quarter-century, the Krause business and reputation steadily grew, and by 1947 Krause was annually manufacturing around 15,000 one-way plows. That growth continued over the ensuing decades, to the point that in 1988 Fortune named Krause tillage equipment among its list of 100 best American-made products. into the 21st Century Henry Krause's family and descendants were intimately involved in the business for 95 years. In 2011, the Kuhn Group acquired the Krause Corporation, and the company has strived to maintain the Krause Excelerator vertical tillage system Krause Dominator primary tillage system Krause Landsman soil finisher Krause no-till drill Henry Krause's original one-way disc plow quickly became a hot commodity and ultimately led to his name being synonymous with quality in tillage products.

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