John Deere Wins Accolades For Advances in Farming Technology

2023 award for the Best of Innovation in Robotics at CES 2023, which is the world’s largest tradeshow.

John Deere CEO John May was also a keynote speaker at CES, and drew accolades as he explained why innovation in farming is so important to the planet and everyone who lives on it.

“Why should you care about farmers when they represent less than two percent of the U.S. population?” May asked rhetorically. “You will not find two industries that have a larger impact on our world and all of us than agriculture and construction.”

John Deere’s new ExactShot uses sensors and robotics to place fertilizer precisely where the seeds need them, instead of dropping a continuous flow of fertilizer all over the row of seeds. John Deere says it will reduce the amount of starter fertilizer needed by more than 60 percent — that’s over 93 million gallons of starter fertilizer annually.

“ExactShot uses a sensor to register when each individual seed is in the process of going into the soil,” the company wrote in a press release. “As this occurs, a robot will spray only the amount of fertilizer needed, about 0.2 milliliters, directly onto the seed at the exact moment as it goes into the ground.”

Another innovation from the tractor company is its see and spray technology, which uses 36 cameras on a massive 120-foot-long machine to pinpoint the difference between weeds and plants. The system can kill the weeds without hurting the crops, which also reduces the amount of herbicide farmers need by up to 66 percent.

Wiebe also says the overall market for tractors is changing, largely due to inflation and the global economic slowdown. “For trends in tractor purchases, we are seeing the overall market shrink slightly,” Wiebe says. “However, in North America KIOTI continues to gain market share faster than the market is shrinking, so we continue to see record breaking tractor purchases despite a slow down.”