Terence Pickett
John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group

Over the past 100 years, advancement in agricultural machinery automation has increased in-field production and productivity and has resulted in immense societal change as well. Since the early 1990’s, precision agriculture technology has become available on various types of Ag machinery. The development of machine guidance was a key productivity boost to Ag producers, as well as making the sometimes stressful job of steering a machine while managing its performance much easier. In addition, other automated systems introduced in recent years, such as automated section/row control to reduce pesticide and planting overlap, have saved valuable inputs and time, and made subsequent field operations easier to execute. Recently, sensors and telematics have been combined to help producers to coordinate machines and tasks across their entire operation as well as to schedule maintenance and monitor operations in real time. Manufacturers such as Trimble with their Connected FarmTM initiative and John Deere with their FarmSight system continue to move these capabilities to the next stage.