The CompanyOur
president, Aldo Ruozi, grew up on a small cotton and alfalfa farm in
southeast Bakersfield, California. "As a young boy, I learned that you
have to walk the furrow to find out what the soil is like. I thought
there must be a better way to work the land."
When he grew up, he put his thoughts into action and
formed Interstate Equipment & Manufacturing Company in 1948. Looking
at it from a grower's perspective, Al began to develop a cotton stalk and
root shredder that later evolved into a one-pass tillage machine for cotton
production.
Growing vegetables on land that had previously
produced cotton presented a problem because the root and stubble left in
the field would not decay rapidly. The debris left in the soil would
mark the developing vegetable crop and downgrade its quality. In the
1950s, implements on the market did a fine job of shredding residue above
the ground, but no machine could successfully remove and shred both cotton
stalks and roots. Ruozi thought there was a better way, so he
designed his first implement to help cotton growers who planted potatoes
after cotton.
His vision created a unique, first-of-its-kind
machine that digs and pulls the cotton plants out by the roots, shreds
them, tills the bed and returns the mulch to the soil all in ONE field
operation. The machine created great interest because of the problems
of
growing vegetables on top of cotton stubble. It was a success and Al
received patents for his invention.
Sitting down after such a remarkable start was not in
Al's nature. He continued to improve the machine's performance each
year. He added an optional re-bedding attachment, so the machine can
now perform all fall tillage operations in one trip over the field, allowing
farmers to plant their next crop back in the same beds. Ruozi renamed
his original implement the "Cotton Shredder-Bedder".
As Ruozi says, "In the 21st Century, cotton producers
must strive to become more efficient in order to be strong competitors in
the world market. Cutting production costs through the adoption of
conservation tillage is not only good for the farmer, but also good for the
soil, water and air resources."
In 2005, Al received the "Conservation Tillage
Innovator Award" presented by the University of California Cooperative
Extension, Conservation Tillage Workshop, for his many years of research,
innovation and contribution to growers with his reduced-tillage
farming systems.
The Cotton Shredder-Bedder by Interstate Equipment &
Manufacturing Company provides the latest technology with a system that is
friendly to the environment and sustainable for future generations!
