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A century of education, service and research was celebrated by the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at South Dakota State University at a gala at Club 71 in the Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium Nov. 6, 2025.

The event drew 150 alumni, current faculty, staff and students, friends of the college and former department heads Darrel DeBoer,  a three-time acting head, and Van Kelley (2000-22). 

Current department head Kasiviswanathan “Muthu” Muthukumarappan, who took the reins after Kelley’s retirement, called the “momentous occasion” an opportunity to “honor the hard work, passion and commitment that have shaped our department’s legacy.”

That legacy dates to 1925, when Ralph Patty became head of the new farm mechanics department after previously working in the college’s Agricultural Extension Service and specializing in structures. The department’s legacy continues today with research focusing on precision agriculture taking place in the state-of-the-art Raven Precision Agriculture Center.

Research grows, need continues

Departmental research expenditures are now 100% higher than they were in fiscal year 2017, when construction of Raven began, Muthu told the gala gathering. Almost all of the 12 full-time faculty members are active in externally funded research ranging from weather to robotics.

Yet they have  not solved all the problems facing an industry that will need to feed a world population of 10 billion by 2050, according to alumnus and keynote speaker Kent Klemme, the director of engineering for turf and compact utility products for John Deere. “Engineering still has big problems to solve. Even with all the technology out there, there are still problems to solve,” said Klemme, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural and biosystems engineering in 1990 and 1992, respectively.

New breakthroughs in agriculture won’t come from a “bigger, stronger, faster” mentality, but a smart technology that partners with artificial intelligence, he said.

“Precision ag is only going to grow. We couldn’t have had autonomous tractors and See and Spray (field sprayers) 20 years ago. Precision ag started nearly 40 years ago. What’s the next precision ag? That’s where we are at with AI (artificial intelligence). But AI can’t do it by itself. AI is a tool engineers will use to improve agriculture,” Klemme said.

He cited the example of a John Deere planter that uses 1GB of internet, has more than 300 sensors, 10 major control systems and more than 20 million lines of computer code. “As an engineer, I think it needs to be made simpler. It’s very complex now. It needs to be made simpler. But it takes a lot of engineers to make that happen.”

Impact of grads evident to all

Nick Uilk, the Klingbeil Endowed Educator in Precision Agriculture, told the gathering that all they need to do is look around to see the impact the department’s graduates have already made.

“You’ll see tractors doing conventional fall tillage or strip tillage or possibly a harvested field ready for no-till, a practice that is possible due to equipment advancements thanks in part to this program.  You’ll see crops being harvested, irrigation systems, conservation practices, livestock buildings, grain storage, feedlots, ethanol and soybean plants, meat-processing facilities, GPS systems, sprayers and maybe even drone sprayers,” Uilk said.

Graduates of the Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Department are transforming the face of agriculture as much as those students from 100 years earlier when farming by horses was still common.

He added that while the department is a small family its strength is multiplied through the unique melding of the engineering and agricultural colleges.