What Does Precision Ag Look Like At John Deere?

When talking about the future of agriculture, one of the most common themes is precision Ag.  Ryan Stien with John Deere said there are two areas of technology Big Green has that help make precision Ag a reality.  One is the hardware on the tractor, combine or other pieces of equipment.  The other part of precision Ag focuses on data management.

“There's a jdlink modem, all that information from the jdlink modem is available to farmers on their John Deere Operations Center account," Stien said.  "So, information is: Where is the machine at? What is the machine currently doing? What has the machine done in the past? What's the productivity of that machine over acres?  If it's doing a job like planting, what's the feed rate that was applied? What the singulation like? It's really kind of a scorecard for the year.”

Stien added jdlink also can “talk back” to the equipment where farmers can send setup information, guidance lines, and much more.  He added this process can be done much quicker and easier from Operation Center compared to sitting at the side of the field and trying to input information into a display.  One of the biggest concerns for farmers is the cost associated with precision Ag.  Many producers think they need all new equipment to enjoy the latest technology, which means high upfront costs.

“We can take our latest hardware, our latest software and put it on some machines back to our 30 series tractor, or our 70 series combines, and execute the job just the same with precision technology from at least the precision technology side. What you experience in a brand-new piece of equipment.  And one of the things we've done to help lower that upfront cost is our Precision Ag Essentials kit.  So, this includes our brand new G5 plus display, our brand-new Starfire receiver and a jdlink modem as a one-time kit.  The first year is $4000 and that gets you all the hardware pieces and a year of auto track, section control and documentation.”

From there, Stien said there’s a $2000 a year license, allowing a customer to make that choice every year if the technology is worth it.  Click Here to learn more about John Deere's Precision Ag Essentials kit.

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com