Frank Zyback conceived and produced the two-way water valves needed to control the alignment of a pivoting pipeline. By 1948, he was testing a small two-tower, water-drive center-pivot system. By 1952, he had created a five-tower system capable of irrigating 40 acres and was awarded a U.S. Patent. Rights for Zybach’s invention were sold to Valley Irrigation Company who was the first commercial producer of the new center-pivot systems.
Frank Zybach, son of Edward and Lena Liebengut Zybach, was born in Lafayette, Oregon on July 10, 1894 but was raised on a farm near Columbus, Nebraska to which his parents moved when he was a small boy. While his formal education was discontinued following the seventh grade, Frank Zybach was an astute observer and he spent many hours with his father who was a neighborhood blacksmith. He grew up with a keen interest in working with metals – an attraction that remained throughout the rest of his life.
In the summer of 1947, at the invitation of a neighbor when Frank Zybach was a tenant farmer on a dryland wheat farm near Strasburg, Colorado, Frank attended an Irrigation Field Day near Prospect City, Colorado where he viewed the labor needed to carry and assemble hand-moved irrigation lines. After each irrigation, the crew had to walk through the mud to disassemble the individual pipe sections, carry them to the next set and reconnect them. At that time, this was the only method of sprinkler irrigation on the market.
On the way home, Mr. Zybach told his neighbor there had to be an easier way to irrigate, so he began to develop his concept of an automatic self-propelled sprinkler irrigation system. During the next two years, Zybach worked to build a prototype. Unable to buy any type of 2-way water valve needed to control the alignment as the pipeline moved around in a circle, Frank Zybach designed and built them himself. Zybach's mechanism to propel the system around the field consisted of a water cylinder at each tower which was connected to a trojan bar which caught the lugs on the two steel wheels at each tower to drive the system forward as the water cylinder filled with water. After each cylinder was filled with water a trip mechanism opened a valve to exhaust the water so the cycle could begin again. By the summer of 1948, he had finished a small two-tower, water-drive center-pivot system which he field-tested that summer.
On June 27, 1949 Zybach filed his application for a U.S. patent complete with the necessary supporting documents. The U.S. Patent Office granted him Patent #2,604,359 on July 22, 1952 for the "Zybach Self-Propelled Sprinkling Irrigating Apparatus." By the spring of 1952, Zybach had built a complete 5-tower center-pivot system to irrigate 40 acres and it was installed on the Ernest Engelbrecht farm north of Strasburg, Colorado, where it was used until the early 1970's to produce irrigated alfalfa.
After he received his patent in July 1952, Zybach contacted a Columbus automobile dealer and entrepreneur, Mr. A.E. Trowbridge. Trowbridge agreed to put up some capital to begin producing Zybach's center-pivot systems in a rented machine shop in Columbus. In return, Zybach sold him 49% interest in the patent rights. From the spring of 1953 to September 1954, 10 center-pivot systems were manufactured by the Zybach-Trowbridge partnership. During this time, Zybach redesigned the system so the main pipeline was suspended about 9 feet above the ground so it could be used to irrigate taller-growing crops such as corn.
During the summer of 1954, Zybach and Trowbridge decided to sell the manufacturing rights to the center-pivot system. Robert B. Daugherty, then President of Valley Manufacturing Company (now Valmont Industries, Inc.), negotiated arrangements in September 1954 for exclusive manufacturing rights to the center-pivot system in exchange for a 5% royalty on each system sold by Mr. Daughtery's firm until the patent expired in 1969.
While slow to gain popularity with farmers and irrigation experts, the many advantages of center-pivot irrigation in saving labor and its uniform and flexible rate of water application began to catch on with farmers in the late 1960's. By the mid-1970's, interest in center-pivot irrigation had grown dramatically with nearly 30 firms involved at one time or another in the manufacture and sale of these systems While the number of firms actively involved in the center-pivot industry in the United States has declined to perhaps 10-12 firms, with only six or seven major companies, the impact on the irrigation industry and agriculture has been phenomenal.
Industry estimates indicate that some 70,000 center-pivot systems have been sold in the United States plush substantial numbers of systems in at least 30 other countries. The impact of center-pivot irrigation has been greatest in Nebraska where there were at least 10 manufacturers at one time and where the top five manufacturers are located today. There are an estimated 20,000 plus center-pivot systems located in Nebraska irrigating over 2.7 million acres of land, nearly 36% of the state's total irrigated land.
Dr. W.E. Splinter, a past president of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers and Head of the Department of Agricultural Engineering, in an article title "Center Pivot Irrigation" published in the June 1976 issue of Scientific American stated:
"Passengers on jet airliners increasingly notice and comment on the round green circles caused by center-pivot systems in the Great Plains states, central Minnesota, the Pacific Northwest and northern Florida. Now the proliferating green circles can be seen even in the middle of the Sahara. What is being observed is perhaps the most significant mechanical innovation in agriculture since the replacement of draft animals by tractor."
In March 1973, the Nebraska Water Conference Committee and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln presented its first Pioneer Irrigation Award to Frank Zybach. In February 1974, he received the Sprinkler Irrigation Association's Industry Achievement Award in Denver, Colorado. On December 8, 1974, the Nebraska Chapter of Alpha Zeta, a scholastic agricultural fraternity, presented its award for outstanding achievement to Frank Zybach.
Mr. Frank Zybach died August 19, 1980 at the age of 86. His widow, Mrs. Nora Zybach resides in Columbus and is here with us this evening along with Mrs. Zybach's niece Marge Thorburn, Fremont and a nephew and his wife, Mr. & Mrs. Leonard Melkers, Grand Island. Mr. Zybach's two daughters from his first marriage reside in California and are unable to be here this evening. I did receive a nice letter from one daughter, Mrs. Angeline Hennessy of Auburn, California. His other daughter, Frances Fena resides in San Mateo, California.
