Bush Hog Celebrates 70 Years

Oct 27, 2021

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In 1951, a new device designed to clear pasture and crop residue was being demonstrated to a group of farmers near Selma, Alabama. Witnessing the ease at which the tractor-pulled implement devoured heavy brush, an elderly gentleman wearing worn overalls stepped forward and observed, “That thing eats bushes like a hog!” And the name was born. Bush Hog has been located in Selma since its inception and is celebrating its 70th anniversary in October 2021

Today, the company employs approximately 350 people at its Selma, Alabama headquarters with 30 territory managers throughout the United States and Canada. Not only is Bush Hog a well-recognized brand in North America, but their machines have been shipped around the world to countries including, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, China, Japan, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, India, Vietnam, France, Portugal, Switzerland, New Guinea, UAE, most major Caribbean Islands and every country in Latin America.

70th Group Photo

Bush Hog products are built-to-last and field-tested—literally! In the early years, the Research and Development department consisted of an employee taking equipment to the family farm and trying their best to tear it up. This process was used to identify weak spots and areas that needed improvement or reinforcement. They would bring the equipment back to the shop, engineers would fix it up, and then back to the farm to try and bust it up some more. If Bush Hog couldn’t bust it, it was ready for production! And while today’s product and safety training is much more sophisticated, it’s that kind of heritage that has led to a reputation for reliability and performance customers can count on. In fact, many Bush Hog products in use today are more than 50 years old!

Bush Hog’s vision is simple… to bring superior value to our customers, employees and stakeholders. Our mission is to provide products and support that help our customers turn their property into a land of opportunity, so they can live their version of the American Dream.

Field Demonstration

The company’s values go beyond bending steel and selling to customers. Bush Hog focuses on giving back – both in the local community and in many other areas across North America. For eight years they have conducted a fund-raiser for breast cancer awareness in partnership with the Joy To Life Foundation, an Alabama based organization providing mammograms and other breast cancer screenings to medically underserved women and men. Bush Hog donates a pink zero turn mower and all donations received go to support Joy To Life’s mission. Bush Hog has also worked with organizations such as AMVETS, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Shriner’s Hospital for Children, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Project Clean Up Selma, Dallas County, City of Selma, the local Food Bank, Edmundite Missions, Camp Grist State Park, Alabama Teen Challenge, SABRA Sanctuary and even a ministry in Zimbabwe among others.

Bush Hog also invests in the future of the local community. They have developed a relationship with local schools to help with the learning process. Employees donate time to tutor students in city schools which resulted in accelerated reading levels for the kindergarten thru 5th grade students participating in the program. The tutoring was initially done personally in the classroom, but has continued virtually for the past 2 years. Bush Hog engineers have also worked closely with robotics teams for county schools as they learn skills and compete with their classroom built robots.

Field Demonstration

Bush Hog has been celebrating its 70th anniversary throughout 2021. Recently the family of employees came together for an afternoon company-wide celebration. Employees sat together for a catered meal, danced to music, played games, won door prizes and enjoyed fellowship with their Bush Hog teammates. No one left empty-handed as every employee received a 70th anniversary logo gift bag, t-shirt, cap, cooler, keychain, and bag of cookies. Bush Hog President, Jerry Worthington, commended the success of the company and the employees. “Bush Hog is such a wonderful company, and our folks are the key factor in this success and longevity. I am proud to work with this Bush Hog family and celebrate the things we continue to accomplish together. We are proud as a team of the past 70 years and excited about the next 70!”

From the beginning in 1951 thru today, Bush Hog products are still built tough in Selma, Alabama. And as one customer said…”If it doesn’t say Bush Hog, it just won’t cut it!"

Source : Bush Hog

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”