Grapes

John Deere Introducing Next Generation Perception Autonomy Kits

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 20:46:44 GMT

John Deere is taking a step forward in autonomy and the technology retrofit market.

Chief Technology Officer Jahmy Hindman describes the effort as “real purpose, real autonomy”. He says the manufacturer is responding to the ongoing labor crunch that is causing headaches across the agriculture industry both domestically and abroad.

To help its users continue to farm with less reliance on human labor, John Deere has announced a suite of new retrofit autonomy kits for tractors and tillage implements, orchard sprayers, and even for the commercial landscape and construction equipment segments.

The kits feature redesigned camera arrays and rugged NVIDIA processing units paired with Blue River Technology’s machine learning algorithms, enabling John Deere machines to autonomously mimic how a human operator would react in the driver’s seat, without anyone actually sitting in the driver’s seat.

Let’s dive in and learn more about what John Deere is launching this week at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

What’s New for Tractors?
John Deere and its integrated Blue River Technologies team have re-architected what it is calling its Next Generation Perception System autonomy retrofit kits. The kits are made for model year 2022 and newer 9R and 9RX tractors, and model year 20.5 and newer 8R and 8RX tractors. Also coming from John Deere is autonomy on its 5ML Series tractors.

To go along with its autonomous tractor kits, there are retrofit kits that outfit select 2017 and newer John Deere tillage implements with additional lighting, a GPS receiver mast, and harnessing for fully autonomous tiling. These autonomy ready features are factory installed as a base package for select model year 2025 tillage tools. Today, the system is only compatible with John Deere tillage implements with the autonomy kits installed, but in the future Deere is working towards compatibility with third-party tillage tools.

The new autonomy kits are made for model year 2022 and newer 9R and 9RX tractors , and model year 20.5 and newer 8R and 8RX tractors, as well as select John Deere tillage tools.

(Photos courtesy of John Deere)

Both autonomy kits will be sold within John Deere’s Precision Upgrades product segment, which the company re-branded in 2023. So far, the kits have been field tested across thousands of acres of cropland. John Deere representatives anticipate the kits will one day be compatible with planting, harvesting, and broad acre application machines. But today, autonomous field tillage is the first domino to fall.

“This expands our autonomous capabilities dramatically,” says Willy Pell, CEO, Blue River Technologies. “Farmers should not have to buy a new tractor to experience autonomy.

Pell adds the kits were designed with ease of installation in mind, especially for tractors and implements that come autonomy ready from the factory.

Let’s dive deeper into some of the components that enable autonomous capabilities within the Next Generation Perception Kits.

Let’s start with the kit’s redesigned camera arrays, which are installed onto the top of a compatible tractor model’s cab and wired into the control module. Within that new camera array are 16 stereo cameras that shoot continuously at triple overlap, giving the system a 360-degree field of vision around the tractor with plenty of redundancy for sensing crops, obstacles, potential humans and other hazards in the field.

What those cameras “see” is processed on ruggedized NVIDIA Jetson GPUs that can withstand temperatures down to -40 degrees F. With the cameras operating as the eyes of the system, the Jetson units serve as the brains and connective tissue, using edge processing to read, react, and fire off commands to the machine just as a human operator would.

Farmers that experienced John Deere’s tractor autonomy kits in the past – this version represents the second evolution of the technology since John Deere introduced it in 2022 – told the company they wanted the driver-less machines to cover more acres in a day, or night. John Deere made that happen, increasing speeds 40% to 12 mph with this iteration, and lighting kits have been added on to allow around-the-clock field work.

“We want to meet customers where they’re at today; our customers across the Midwest want to customize their tillage setups with various tools of different sizes and configurations, and we want to make as many of those tools autonomy capable with one system as possible, and that’s what we’ve done with the Generation 2 Perception System,” says Aaron Wells, Engineering and AI Systems, Blue River Technologies. “This is real autonomy that I can set, forget, and run in the field or monitor using John Deere Operations Center Mobile.”

Local John Deere dealers will have a limited number of kits available for 2025 with a full launch tabbed for 2026.

Orchard tractors and sprayers
The Next Generation Perception System kit has been slightly tweaked for permanent orchard crop growers. Those growers generally use lower horsepower machines with narrower footprints to complete tasks between trellised rows of grapes, tree nuts, and other orchard crops like apples.

In California’s massive specialty crop industry, John Deere says that over 50% of machine operator jobs posted by farming operations are going unfilled. John Deere believes its autonomy kits can lessen that reliance on seasonal labor and help farmers hit tight production windows in order to maximize yields.

The Next Generation Perception kit for orchard tractors and sprayers features fewer camera arrays than the row crop kit but adds an integrated LiDAR sensor to 3D image tree canopies and orchard trellising in real-time.

(Photos courtesy of John Deere)

Whether we’re talking about the large tractor autonomy kits or the orchard tractor-sprayer kit, the systems share many common components. Rather than needing 16 stereo cameras, the autonomous orchard tractor kit deploys seven cameras alongside three LiDAR sensors. The LiDAR sensors provide a real-time 3D image of vine and orchard crops as the tractor moves around the orchard, giving the machine the ability to tell the pull-behind sprayer implement where to apply and where not to apply.

The 5ML Specialty Tractor, along with the key Precision Essentials technology that will enable autonomy, JDLink Modem, StarFire Receiver, G5 Display, and John Deere Operations Center are all available today, with the autonomy kit being available in limited quantities in 2026.

“We’ve developed this incredible second-generation technology that allows us to scale across different crops and new industries,” says Igino Cafiero, CEO and founder, Bear Flag Robotics. John Deere acquired Bear Flag in 2021 for $250 million.

Something for your side hustle?
I have no data to back this up, but I would guess there might be some row crop farmers out there that might own commercial landscaping, construction, or excavation businesses in addition to farming full time.

For the commercial landscape segment, John Deere has extended its next Generation Perception kit to automate a new green and yellow autonomous battery electric zero-turn mower.

This autonomous battery powered commercial lawn mower remains in the concept stage today but John Deere anticipates it being available for landscape professionals in the future.

(Photos courtesy of John Deere)

While still in the concept stage of development, the commercial mower can be programmed to autonomously cut common professional landscaping patterns while its operator monitors the machine from nearby with what looks and feels like a beefed-up Xbox controller. There is also a rear standing deck that can be flipped down, with dedicated operator controls on the machine, in case the operator feels like hopping onboard and steering the mower.

And for the construction world, John Deere has applied the next Generation perception kit to create a driverless commercial dump truck. The truck can autonomously move material from Point A to Point B and even know exactly where it needs to dump its load. Site workers can use the John Deere Operations Center to define ideal routes and start, stop, and unload the giant diesel-powered machines from outside of the cab.

Again, like their row crop and specialty crop farming brethren, commercial landscape and construction firms are also feeling the squeeze of the labor shortage.

“There’s no better story, I think, than using technology for the benefit of humanity. It is our purpose and what pulls all of this together,” Hindman says. “Our number one mission in developing these kits is to help reduce the dependency on unskilled labor. We think autonomy is a significant answer to solving that dilemma for our customers.”

To learn more about the Next Generation Perception System head to Deere.com/autonomy

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Grape Growers Desperately Need You to Drink More Wine as They Grapple With a Glut of Uncontracted Grapes

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 18:26:42 GMT

It’s not just row crop farmers dealing with challenges and low prices. In California, prices are low for everything from nuts to fruits, and financial stress is weighing heavily on farmers. Grape growers are in a particularly unique situation. Declining demand for wine and an increase in imported wine means there’s a glut of grapes this year, and it’s so bad there’s a surge in the amount of unharvested grapes that still don’t have a home. Now, there are fears it could ultimately force more true family farmers out of business.

Jennifer Thomson took over the family farm in 2012. Napa Valley is broken into American Viticultural Areas (AVAs). Thomson’s vineyard is situated in the Los Carneros AVA. Thomson is one of the few family farmers still left in Napa Valley.

“I think it’s incredibly rare. When you truly meet a family grower who is hands on and drives their own tractor and is responsible for selling their own fruit and is responsible for paying the taxes on the land, and there’s no middlemen involved, that’s a rarity in 2024,” she says.

Jennifer Thomson is a 5th-Generation Farmer in Napa Valley, California.

(Jennifer Thomson )

The toil she’s dedicated to the land runs five generations deep, yet when she took over, she truly made the operation her own. She focused on plant health, mechanizing some of the labor-intensive tasks on the farm and truly paid attention to every detail.

This year, the vines are a sign of her hard work. The vines that line her vineyard are loaded with a healthy crop that’s sized up nicely and mildew free.

Wine grapes in Napa Valley, Calif.

(Tyne Morgan )

Battling different weather each year, she says this year, there actually haven’t been too many speed bumps in the road. Even with the heat making headlines, grape growing has been good in her area of California. Yet, her vibrant and healthy vines aren’t as full as they’d normally be.

“I made some decisions during pruning to reduce the crop load in conjunction with this being a sluggish grape selling market,” says Thomson.

No Home for Most Her Grapes
In December of 2023, Thomson received some gut-wrenching news.

“Ultimately, all of our contracts were canceled on December 31, 2023. All of them with the exception of one,” she adds.

Thomson’s vineyards produce just under 300 tons of grapes each year, and for the first time in more than a decade, two-thirds of her crop is uncontracted and without a home.

“I have found limited and very small homes. And by that I mean am I able to sell two to eight tons here or there? Yes, but that has been through existing clients who were smaller family-owned wineries. Our parcels produce hundreds of tons worth of grapes,” Thomson explains.

Thomson’s Vineyards in Napa Valley, California

(Tyne Morgan)

First Time in More than a Decade Farmers Have Faced Uncontracted Grapes on Vines
Walking lush vineyards and staring at young healthy vines loaded with unsold grapes is a flashback to what area vineyards saw 15 years ago.

“During sort of the ".com” era and the financial bust of 2008 and 2009, a similar pattern occurred in the marketplace where wineries canceled all contracts across the board for many growers or even those growers who had contracts were told do not deliver those grapes to the winery,” she says.

Napa Valley is known for grape and wine production. 4 percent of California’s wine production happens in Napa Valley, but its value is higher.

Impacting Multigenerational Farms
Nearly 60 miles east of Napa Valley, you’ll find grape growers in another fruitful production area of California, which is Lodi. It’s an area that is home to 20% of California’s wine production. And grape growers there are faced with the same dilemma.

“Our community is multi-generational farming families that have been farming grapes for over 100 years,” says Stuart Spencer, executive director of the Lodi Winegrape Commission. “And so their whole identity is wrapped up in growing grapes. And so it’s really hitting some of our people hard.”

Dwindling Wine Demand
Home to 100,000 acres of grapes, Spencer says the current issue is both too much supply and dwindling demand.

“We were fortunate in our industry, and in the United States, to have about 30 years of positive growth, year-after-year growth. One of the challenges with growth is it tends to hide the problems and challenges,“ he explains.

Wine consumption had started to taper off around 2017 and 2018, but the pandemic hid some of the problems.

(State of the World Wine and Wine Sector Report from 2023. )

Spencer says the U.S. wine market started to see demand flatten in 2018. One reason is the Baby Boomer generation growing older.

“Then we went into the pandemic and the pandemic really distorted sales and shipments, and we are still dealing with the hangover of the distortions from the pandemic,” Spencer explains.

As consumers bought more wine, beer and spirits during the pandemic, retailers also beefed up their inventories to meet the booming demand. But now, the story has changed. With inflation and other concerns in the economy, consumers are drinking less wine and retailers aren’t buying as much.

“It’s pushed the inventory back upstream, basically to the wineries, who then turn around and cut grape purchases to the growers,” he says.

However, it’s not just the fact consumers aren’t home as much drinking wine. Spencer says there’s also been an anti-alcohol sentiment in the news over the past year that’s pushing people away, including claims from the World Health Organization.

“One of the problems we see there is they’re not differentiating between ‘abuse and healthy use.’ The World Health Organization come out with saying no level of alcohol is safe. And so a lot of these things are kind of in a backdrop that’s really putting pressure on wine.”

Article from the World Health Organization (WHO) website.

(WHO website )

Issues Started in 2023
With a decline in demand, Spencer says it came to a head during last year’s harvest when growers started facing a brutal reality.

“A lot of our growers in the Lodi area operate on what are called ‘long-term contracts.’ And many of the large wine companies were using every kind of loophole in the contracts to get out of purchasing grapes and using quality parameters and things like that, which really put pressure on the growers.”

He says estimates show 400,000 tons of grapes went unharvested last year in California alone. There are fresh fears this year could be even worse with more grapes left without a contract this close to harvest.

“One of the real frustrating things for the growers in California is that our largest buyers - and the top seven wineries - control about 70% of the U.S. wine market,” says Spencer. “Over the last 20 years, they’ve evolved into kind of what we call global alcohol companies. And so they’re no longer just sourcing California grapes, but still selling their wine there.”

A Surge in Imports Hurting Family Farmers
As those major wine companies increase imports, it’s another challenge for California’s grape growers, especially when those wine companies’ claims can be misleading.

What’s being called a “dirty secret “ is the fact 20 million gallons of imported bulk wine poured into California just in the first five months of this year, all while a large portion of California’s grapes for wine don’t have a home. Some argue that the government stepping in with tariffs on imported bulk wine would actually help save family farmers struggling to survive.

“I’ve been digging into this for the past six months, and there is a loophole in our trade regulations, and it’s called, double duty drawback, which allows these imports to come in basically tax free,” says Spencer. “And so they’re basically getting 99% of their alcohol taxes and duties refunded to them if they can provide matching exports. And so that’s a handful of companies getting potentially hundreds of millions of dollars, which has created a significant incentive for this bulk wine imports to take place, which has undercut the California grape grower.”

As imports increase, it’s another challenge for California’s grape growers who have no home for their grapes. Even when they do have somewhere to take their perishable product, the prices they are being paid haven’t gone up as much as costs to produce that ton of grapes.

“We were being paid $2,000 to $2,500 a ton back in 1998. Maybe in current times, in 2023 2024 for sparkling wine grapes, we’re being paid $2,850 to $2,900. And that’s really only a 10% increase over 20 years or more.

Thomson says at the same time, her costs are up anywhere from 30% to 50%.

Ask for American-Made Wine
Taking over her family farm, there’s nothing else Thomson would rather do. She’s convinced the future of wine in the U.S. can find renewed demand, as she hopes there’s still a group of consumers that want to a connection to the wine they drink.

“I really do feel that there is a group out there that are millennials who are really getting into collecting wine, or they have that authentic need to connect,” says Thomson. “There’s an opportunity in the industry, and I think that the smart wineries will capitalize on that. The question will be for us as family farmers. How long can we wait for them to discover this?”

Grape growers across the U.S. want consumers to not only drink more wine, but to make sure the wine they’re consuming is actually produced from grapes grown in the U.S.

“At the end of the day, we need the customer to pay attention to where their food comes from and where their wine comes from, and to be looking at the labels and care about that. I think that’s the most important thing.” says Spencer. “We as an industry are going to be fighting some of these issues as best we can, but the farmers are at the bottom of the food chain. And so our resources are limited.”

“I would just ask for people in the Midwest or wherever you might be across the United States, when we say, ‘get to know your farmer,’ we really mean, even in the wine industry, know who the farmer is behind those grapes and know who the winemaker is,” says Thomson.

Biofungicide LALSTOP G46 WG Now Registered on Powdery Mildew

Sun, 23 Apr 2023 13:00:00 GMT

Growers in California have a new tool to control Powdery Mildew starting this season. Lallemand Plant Care announced today the registration of LALSTOP G46 WG for use against Powdery Mildew.

“Powdery Mildew can be particularly problematic in vineyards, affecting both crop yield and wine quality,” says Scott Peterson, National Sales Director of Specialty Crops, USA at Lallemand Plant Care. “Trials conducted by the Eskalen Lab at UC Davis showed that applying LALSTOP G46 WG resulted in a 98% decrease in severity of Powdery Mildew in wine grapes. We are excited to extend the label of this biofungicide in California. We predict it will be a top choice in managing Powdery Mildew.”

LALSTOP G46 WG is a proven biofungicide which controls multiple foliar diseases of fruit, vegetable, herb, and ornamental crops, including Botrytis. This biofungicide works through multiple modes of action, reducing resistance development. Compatible with organic and conventional IPM programs, LALSTOP G46 WG is an excellent rotational or tank-mix partner.