Cameras, sensors help farmers achieve ‘superhuman’ outcomes

MALTA, Ill. — Advances in technology of agricultural equipment are giving farmers new opportunities to control various processes.

“As we think about artificial intelligence, the three main things are how do we sense, act and decide,” said Clint Chaffer, John Deere product marketing lead for precision upgrades.

“Ultimately, it’s giving us superhuman outcomes that we could not control by ourselves without sensors,” said Chaffer during a presentation at the Illinois Soybean Growers 2024 Farm Business Summit.

Sensors are about focusing on job outcomes.

“Everybody has a little bit different tillage practice so we got to ensure the job is being done correctly and efficiently,” Chaffer said.

Using precision upgrades, the marketing lead said, farmers are able to add sensors and cameras to tractors they own today to make them autonomous.

“It depends on the year of the tractor and the compatibility, but you will be able to bring a piece of equipment up to the latest technology without buying brand new equipment,” he said.

“There are sensors we can put on planters so you don’t have to get out of the cab,” he noted. “FurrowVision is a piece of hardware that’s installed right behind the disc openers.”

FurrowVision includes a laser and camera that looks at the depth of the furrow in real time and sends a video to the cab of the tractor.

“It shows you if the furrow is structured correctly and then you can decide what settings you need to change to increase the quality of the furrow,” Chaffer said.

If the furrow is too structured, a farmer may decide to decrease the down pressure on the planter.

“If I’m getting a furrow that’s falling apart, maybe I’m going to put a little more down pressure or if I’m getting trash in the furrow, I need to adjust the row cleaners,” Chaffer said.

“We are really focusing on how to maximize emergence and stand by making sure we’re monitoring the furrow,” he said. “As we continue to add sensors and automation, you can imagine that maybe instead of me making the changes, the system is making the changes.”

See & Spray is a machine learning technology for John Deere sprayers that provides a targeted spray application.

“We have three different types of See & Spray — Select, Premium and Ultimate,” Chaffer said.

“For See & Spray Premium, we can upgrade a sprayer all the way back to 2018, as long as your sprayer has 100 or 120-foot booms, ExactApply and BoomTrac Pro 2,” he said.

“See & Spray Ultimate comes from the factory and it’s a two-tank system,” he explained. “This system allows you to put two different applications down on the same pass — a broadcast and a targeted application utilizing the See & Spray technology.”

The See & Spray technology is available for corn, soybeans and cotton.

“It can tell the difference between a soybean plant and a weed or a corn plant and a weed and spray only the weed so you don’t need to spray the entire field,” Chaffer said.

“We can go 12 mph with Premium and 15 mph with Ultimate,” he said. “That comes down to the vision processing units — the Premium has six and Ultimate has 10 — so more VPUs means more processing power and the sprayer can go faster.”

When See & Spray Ultimate was first launched, Chaffer said, the operating speed was 12 mph.

“In the middle of the season, our engineers figured out how to make it go faster, so you get an update and the next day you can go 15 mph,” he said. “This technology continues to get better, even throughout the season.”

Farmers can evaluate their fields with weed pressure maps through the See & Spray system.

“The green, yellow and red areas show where the weed pressure is,” Chaffer said. “I think it will be really interesting to start analyzing these maps year over year.”

The marketing lead provided an example of an Illinois farmer who ran See & Spray Premium on a 2018 sprayer over his 2,000 acres of soybeans.

“He saw a 66% savings in product and a little over $7,000 in total savings,” Chaffer said.

The farmer changed his herbicide application program from the prior year.

“He put down a pre-application, came back with an early post with a residual and both those were broadcast not using See & Spray,” Chaffer said. “Then he went back in with a third pass using See & Spray for contact only and that’s where he saw the savings.”

For his 3,000 acres of corn, the marketing lead, the farmer had a 59% product savings.

“They ran several different spray programs and they had a little over $24,000 in savings,” Chaffer said.

“If you have a sprayer that already has ExactApply and BoomTrac Pro 2, it costs $25,000 to add See & Spray to a sprayer,” he said. “That’s a pretty good investment.”

Automation is also available on John Deere combines.

“The latest one which I think is most exciting is predictive ground speed automation,” Chaffer said.

“This uses cameras on the cab looking at the height and the biomass of the crop in front of you and also utilizing satellite imagery that has been taken throughout the season to determine the speed of the machine before it gets to that area,” he explained.

“If there’s a large area of heavy biomass, it may start slowing down before you get to that area,” he said. “It makes those adjustments on the fly which can reduce the stress on the operator and allow him to focus on other things.”