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Friday, September 30, 2022

Deere Invests Billions in Self-Driving Tractors, Smart Crop Sprayers

Umpressive directions in agriculture automation ...

Deere Invests Billions in Self-Driving Tractors, Smart Crop Sprayers

One side of the John Deere See & Spray Ultimate’s 120-foot sprayer boom, which features 36 cameras.

The Wall Street Journal

Bob Tita; Jacob Bunge

September 11, 2022

Agricultural machinery manufacturer Deere is investing billions of dollars to launch self-driving tractors and intelligent crop sprayers this year. Deere CEO John May predicts software use fees will constitute 10% of the company’s annual revenue by 2030. The sprayers use computer vision to differentiate crops from weeds and to more precisely target herbicide sprays. By 2026, Deere aims to connect 1.5 million machines in operation and 500 million acres in use to its cloud-based John Deere Operations Center, which will collect and retain crop data. Last year, Deere bought the Bear Flag Robotics startup to provide software to make older tractors capable of autonomous use. The company is wagering it can alleviate farmers' anxiety of losing control over their equipment by offering software-as-a-service on an as-needed basis for specific tasks.

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