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Deere Invests Billions in Self-Driving Tractors, Smart Crop Sprayers - Equipment maker, rivals roll out software to boost yield, but some farmers voice concerns over their data
Selling farmers subscriptions to the software is expected to yield higher profit margins than sales of Deere’s signature green and yellow machinery, which will continue to make up the bulk of Deere sales. A 2021 report from Bernstein analysts estimated the average gross margin for farming software at 85%, compared with 25% for equipment sales.
Deere is betting that it can lower farmers’ anxiety by offering software as a service on an as-needed basis for specific jobs, such as tilling fields or applying fertilizer. Deere said it is considering charging a per-acre fee for fields where the software is deployed. The company hasn’t yet released a fee schedule. Deere said it would be responsible for fixing any problems and updating the software. Farmers would need to buy the newest crop sprayers to use the software.
Nebraska farmer Taylor Nelson said he uses an enhanced version of Deere’s AutoTrac guidance system, which collects and shares information about the whereabouts and work being done by people operating machinery on his 12,000-acre farm. Mr. Nelson said the system has cut down on costly mistakes, such as spraying a field twice with fertilizer.
“You can use this technology to stick people in with less experience and still get optimal results,” Mr. Nelson said.
Mr. Nelson said he’s doubled the number of acres he plants in a day to 800 with Deere’s new high-speed planter, which distributes seeds at precise depths in the soil for ideal growing conditions.
Deere’s new generation of smart farm equipment grew from its 2017 acquisition of Blue River Technology Inc., a startup co-founded in 2011 by Jorge Heraud, a Peruvian immigrant. Mr. Heraud said about two-thirds of the herbicide applied to a field by a conventional sprayer lands on places other than weeds. Blue River developed computer vision technology to differentiate crops from weeds, which evolved from the company loading photos of California lettuce plants into a sprayer and programming it to avoid spraying plants in a lettuce field that matched those photos.
Deere has adapted the technology to the 120-foot-long spray boom that extends from the sides of self-propelled crop sprayers. The boom’s 36 cameras feed images to onboard computers that identify weeds and activate the herbicide sprayer. Images of weeds and crops are cataloged in a database used by all the sprayers in service, reducing the chances that a sprayer will come upon a plant that has never been seen before.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/deere-invests-billions-in-self-driving-tractors-smart-crop-sprayers-11662904802?