ANDREAS MOHR, MARKTOBERDORF
PHOTO: BERT JANSEN
PHOTO: JOHN DEERE
PHOTO: HANDS FREE HECTARE PHOTO: THE CLIMATE CORPORATION
EDITOR’S PICKS ▶▶▶
Deveron predicts increase in ag-data use
NORTH AMERICA With the recent acquisition of Veritas Farm Management, the data analytics arm of South West Ag Partners Inc, Deveron UAS – a Canadi- an agricultural drone service company – is be- coming an ever-larger player in the North American agronomic services market. Spokes- people are positioning the company as an in- dependent source of practical farm insights. The acquisition decision, they add, was driven by a belief that farm digitisation and the value of data-based decision making will continue trending upwards. According to David MacMillan, president and chief executive officer for Deveron, the acquisi- tion is designed to facilitate the creation of an independent data services network that pro- vides practical business decision support to farmers across North America. He adds his company’s network of drone operators was al- ready driving significant business to Veritas’s analytical services. Incorporating it as a divi- sion within Deveron, he says, allows for more efficient and trustworthy agronomic insights.
ers to their product portfolio as they progres- sively transform the one-time ‘tractors only’ manufacturer into a full-line brand. Precision Planting, based in Tremont, Illinois, was bought by Fendt parent AGCO in 2017 af- ter plans by John Deere to acquire the business from Monsanto were thwarted by anti-trust concerns. The company has developed a num- ber of new technologies over the past 25 years aimed at improving planter performance. These include the SpeedTube unit for singulat- ing and conveying maize and similar grains to the furrow rather than relying on gravity, and the DeltaForce sowing depth control system, which automatically adjusts down-force be- tween 10kg and 250kg. The mechanism uses proximity sensors and a processor linked to a hydraulic cylinder on the parallel linkage of each planter unit, with the aim of achieving more consistent sowing depth than mechani- cal systems, especially in variable soils
product name (which can be entered into the Operations Center) with Granular’s benchmark input data. After a field is harvested, revenue is associated to the field based on the yield doc- umented in the Operations Center and the crop year’s projected prices provided by the USDA Risk Management Agency. Profit is com- municated to the user in dollars per acre.
Hands Free Hectare’s second harvest
Per-acre profi tability in Op Centre
Fendt assessing sowing technology
EUROPE Managers at Fendt are weighing up whether to add AGCO-built large seed precision plant-
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NORTH AMERICA John Deere, together with Granular – an inde- pendent agricultural software company under the ownership of Corteva Agriscience – have released a new tool to help farmers view aver- age cost, revenue and profit map layers at the sub-field level. The system is called Profit Maps. JD product manager Brad Silva: “Advanc- es in technology have allowed farmers to de- velop agronomic plans that turn variability across their fields into opportunities to im- prove their bottom lines. Profit Maps helps farmers see the financial impact of those deci- sions and adjust their management practices accordingly.” Granular attempts to match the seed varieties, fertilisers and chemicals by comparing the
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 1 November 2018
EUROPE The British Hands Free Hectare project has suc- cessfully harvested their second crop using their autonomous combine harvester. The pro- ject, run by Harper Adams University in Shrop- shire and Precision Decisions in York, aims to be the first to plant, tend and harvest a crop remotely, using automated machines. It grew a crop of winter wheat, with the aim to improve the machinery’s accuracy and so improve field coverage, ultimately leading to a more com- petitive yield. Drilling misses fell from 2.82% in the first year to 0.35% this year, helping to achieve an over- all yield of 6.5 tonnes despite a late drilling and busy schedules. Precision Decisions’ Martin Abell said he was pleased with the harvest, but the key achievement this year was completing a rolling team. “Last year, we tried an unload on the move, but experienced accuracy issues. We still had a little involvement with the trac- tor through the remote control, but once it was there, it drove itself to within a 5cm accu- racy. Our combine ran autonomously through- out the cutting.”
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