7 Technology Trends Ag Retailers Need To Know
Farm Journal’s Smart Farming Week is an annual week-long emphasis on innovation in agriculture. The goal is to encourage you to explore and prioritize the technology, tools and practices that will help you farm smarter. Innovation today ensures an efficient, productive and sustainable tomorrow.
These smart farming trends and example products highlight greater efficiency, maximum yields and environmental stewardship.
1. Selective Spraying
Now, multiple selective spraying systems are available as factory installations and aftermarket options from different manufacturers.
One of the newest offerings is the factory install of John Deere’s See & Spray Premium on Hagie STS sprayers. Two more aftermarket offerings for this year are John Deere’s marketing of its aftermarket Precision Upgrades program and its $25,000 See & Spray dealer-installed option for 2018 and newer sprayers. Also, Trimble has a green-on-green Bilberry smart spray add-on kit. AGCO expects general availability of its One Smart Spray technology, a collaboration with Bosch and BASF, in 2025.
John Deere Announces Tech Focused 2025 Introductions
2. Data Analytics
You can’t manage what you don’t measure, and as data collection continues to grow, analytical tools are making interpretation and actionable insights easier to grasp.
One example is AGMRI Analyze, which will track post-season data analytics including:
- Emergence
- Nutrient availability
- Crop stress
- Disease
- Hybrid and variety
- Weather
- Soil
- Machine
- Crop input product performance
Intelinair will continue to offer its in-season analytics platform, AGMRI Insights, allowing for full-season crop management.
Intelinair Introduces Postseason Data Analytics Suite
3. More Connectivity
Deere & Company announced an agreement with SpaceX to provide Starlink network satellite communications (SATCOM) service to farmers. Utilizing the Starlink network, this solution will allow farmers facing rural connectivity challenges to fully leverage precision agriculture technologies.
The SATCOM solution will connect both new and existing machines through satellite internet service and ruggedized satellite terminals. This will enable autonomy, real-time data sharing, remote diagnostics, enhanced self-repair solutions and machine-to-machine communication. All will help farmers work more efficiently while minimizing downtime, according to John Deere.
John Deere, SpaceX Announce Starlink Deal
4. Prescription Inputs
Since 2020, the team at AMVAC has been pioneering at-plant applied variable-rate crop protection. To date, tens of thousands of acres have been planted with SIMPAS-applied Solutions through the SIMPAS application system.
“Our retail agronomist partners expect this market to grow by 50% in the next three to five years,” says Jim Lappin, director of the SIMPAS portfolio at AMVAC. “Growers already think about variable-rate opportunities with macro fertilizer, and the variable-rate seeding rate adoption is high. Right now, variable-rate inputs at plant are in the low double digits for adoption. Overall, the industry is moving away from any flat rates across a field.”
Variable Rate At-Plant Inputs: Industry Update
5. Streamlined Ways To Do Business
Retailers are increasingly doing business digitally with farmer-customers.
For example, AgVend says its customer base bringing digital portals to market with their farmers represents greater than 25% of the U.S. ag input market.
Earlier this year, Growers and Bushel announced a partnership to integrate digital payments into the ag retail purchasing process. Scheduled to be added to the platform this spring, Bushel Wallet will help farmers pay invoices and receive grain settlement checks at more than 2,600 grain buying and ag retail locations in the U.S.
Growers Platform To Integrate Bushel Wallet
6. Gene-Edited Crops
“Gene editing is the analog-to-digital moment for agriculture,” says Rory Riggs, co-founder of Cibus.
Earlier this year, Loveland and Cibus announced a partnership to work toward commercializing herbicide tolerance in rice with a focus on the southern U.S. market, where demand for novel approaches in weed control is most prevalent.
Cibus and Loveland Partner For Gene Edited Rice
7. Fields and Plants That Talk
Technology tools are allowing crop scouting efforts to be expanded with advanced sensors in the field.
For example, Agtrinsic is expanding its network of sensors with Scanit Technologies’ SporeCams and Spornado Samplers. In partnership with Growmark, it’s creating a contiguous disease monitoring network from border to border in Illinois and Iowa and in parts of Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana and Wisconsin. Agtrinsic customers will be able to access this data to help with their crop protection decisions.
Plant varieties are also being developed to help detect problems early. For example, InnerPlant continues to develop its technology to have plants exhibit signals to show early onset of stress, which is detected by remote monitoring. Its ongoing focus has been transgenic soybeans that display a color change within several days of being infected by a disease.
