IN YOUR ORCHARD
He spent months trying to track down these companies to convince one of them to work with him. “One of the biggest struggles of this project was getting people to contact me back,” said Wagner. “It’s a small
Almond Leadership Program classmates and mentors, ABC staff and industry leadership,² R & S Processing sent the compound formulation to Holz Rubber, who would then mold the shaker pads.
experimental project, so not a lot of people wanted to bother with it.” He eventually found a company that was happy to work with him in R & S Processing, based in Southern California. Wagner asked the company to replace carbon black, a standard ingredient in rubber formulations, with torrefied almond shells. After failed attempts to replace 25% to 100% of carbon black with TAS, they instead decided to replace 10% so that the tensile strength of the rubber wouldn’t be compromised. And yet again, a challenge emerged – TAS could not be shipped directly to R & S Processing; they first had to be ground down to a particle size of 150 microns. After hours of research, Wagner was able to connect with a company willing to grind 1,000 pounds of TAS. The first batch sent for grinding was too wet, so it did not meet specification, but with the second batch, the process of manufacturing rubber almond shaker heads could begin. Research and results Given the challenges and obstacles along the way, Wagner was able to make remarkable progress in about six months. The day he gave his project presentation for fellow
Cover More Ground with HOBOnet!
HOBOnet is a cost-effective, web-enabled, remote monitoring solution that:
Uses wireless sensors to measure temperature, rainfall, wind, and soil moisture at numerous points across your entire almond orchard Eliminates the hassle of running cables Provides real-time alerts when conditions reach user-set thresholds Works with HOBOnet’s multi-depth sensor to measure soil moisture along the entire root depth, so you can make better irrigation decisions that save water
HOBOnet Wireless Multi-Depth Soil Moisture Sensor
by Onset HOBO ®
1-800-LOGGERS sales@onsetcomp.com on.onsetcomp.com/almondgrowers
4 4
A L M O N D F A C T S
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker