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Excerpt:
"Nebraska but was farming in Colorado in 1947 when he saw a demonstration of modern movable irrigation. Workers were moving and connecting pipes fitted with sprinkler heads from one part of a field to another. Sprinklers could beat a couple of problems: uneven, hilly terrain and the tendency of water to run into sandy ground before getting to the end of the ditch.
But Zybach, a lifelong tinkerer, saw something more: Why have humans set up, take down, move the equipment and repeat? Why not have the equipment move itself?
Zybach built his first prototype within a year. It rotated around a center wellhead. Guy wires that were attached to support towers held the sprinkler-fitted water pipes above the ground. Control wires and two-way water valves kept the towers in line. The first support towers moved on skids, but Zybach soon replaced those with wheels propelled by the irrigation water itself.
He applied for a patent for the “Zybach Self-Propelled Sprinkling Apparatus” in July 1949. He knew he needed to improve his invention — making it tall enough to work for corn, among other things. So, the same year he got his patent, he moved back to Nebraska and went into business with a friend, A. E. Trowbridge...."
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