Back at the John Deere booth at the Farm Progress Tradeshow in Boone, Iowa, our own Maci Carter found Michael Porter, Go-To Market Manager for Large Tractors, Tillage, and Scrapers, and spoke to him about some of John Deere’s new tillage launches, like the MT or minimum till rippers and the CC or Coulter Chisel line up just launched the week before Farm Progress. The conversation also migrated to autonomous technology.
The new MT Series replaces the 2100 Minimum-Till Ripper and is a deep, subsoil, inline ripper that breaks up the compaction layer with minimal surface disruption. “With this new line up, we are excited to be bringing an MT11, or an eleven-shank inline ripper,” Porter detailed. “Previously, with the 2100, we only had out to a nine-shank. This ripper isn’t only a wider implement, but it also brings twice the wear life on all of our standards.”
The CC Series is in answer to customer demand for a coulter chisel. The eleven-shank will fit a small row crop operation or the CC25, with 25 shanks, will fit nicely behind a higher-powered tractor like the new 9RX.
“Both implements have the TruSet Active technology,” Porter explained. “It gives the ability to set it and forget it. That really plays into effect when we talk about the CC series which is also autonomy-ready from the factory. Autonomy-ready means that we are installing all of the harnessing, and any controllers needed for autonomy, including our StarFire Receiver nest. All the customer needs to do is add their StarFire Receiver and hook it to one of our autonomous tractors, and they will have an autonomous tillage solution.”
With the autonomous tillage solution, the operator can take the first couple of passes, then they’ll have their guidance lines imported from John Deere’s Information Center, so the operator can exit the tractor, monitor its progress on his or her phone, and accomplish more value-added tasks on the farm while the tractor continues to till.
Porter added that it doesn’t take a brand-new tractor to adopt autonomous farming. John Deere can incorporate autonomous technology into older tractors and equipment, although new tractors do come prepared for it from the factory.
While for many farmers, autonomy may be something new and different, John Deere has been engaged in a stairstep approach for the past decade. From initial guidance to automation of certain tasks like turning at the ends of rows and picking up and lowering implements to, now, introducing fully autonomous equipment.
“What our customers are telling us is that, especially in the busy seasons -spring and fall – time and people can be in short supply,” Porter shared. “This allows them to take one person and pair them with one, two, or three autonomous tillage tractors to stay ahead of the planters in the spring or to rip the stalks in the fall behind the combine, while they go do things like haul grain away, keep the planters tended with seed, or have dinner with their families or catch their kid’s sporting game.”
In addition to benefitting farmers through time and labor savings, autonomous farming also provides for agronomic savings, such as planting nearer to the ideal windows, or ripping the stalks before the ground freezes.
“We want everyone to be able to embrace autonomy and some of these technologies on their farms, so with our precision upgrades, we are able to add a lot of the technologies to older equipment,” Porter said.
He added that more information about the MT Series, CC Series, or autonomous tractors can be found at deere.com or your local John Deere dealership.