Ernst’s seed production relies on pollinators. Beehives are mapped and placed strategically across the fields to provide full coverage of seed crops. (Image courtesy of Ernst Seeds)

Every Monday and Wednesday, the team at Ernst Conservation Seeds gathers around maps to discuss which fields to harvest, which fields need treatments, and where to plant new crops.

On this 10,000-acre farm near the small town of Meadville, Pennsylvania, the company pioneered the propagation of 180 species of native wildflowers, grasses, and wetland plants to revive degraded land and provide wildlife habitat.

Now, the plants Ernst Seeds propagates are in high demand. Pollinator planting has become a trend worldwide, with the growing realization that flying bugs and birds are key to the survival of three-quarters of the world’s plants, including many we eat. Native plants are also being valued for nature-based solutions to protect soils from erosion and filter pollutants from stormwater.

Across its operation, Ernst Seeds embraces the science of agronomy and the use of geographic information system (GIS) technology to understand native plant species and grow them better, faster, and less expensively.

There’s a lot of experimentation that goes into growing native seeds and designing the right mix for each restoration project. “What we’re doing is going out and looking at existing plant communities to see what species grow together and how they’re doing it,” said Andy Ernst, vice president of Ernst Seeds. “Then there are lessons from our farming failures and successes. We make a lot of discoveries in our fields when we map yield data and the treatments we applied.”

Improving plant propagation

Typically, large farms focus on commodity crops like corn, soybeans, wheat, or cotton. At Ernst Seeds, the growing cycles of 180 species are tracked across 1,300 fields and 15 square miles.

“I realized a long time ago that with the complexity of our farm, we needed software to track it,” Ernst said. His early forays into traditional farm management software products were frustrating as most could not support so many crops. The software lacked the data management and analysis capabilities needed to discern best practices for seed crops no one else was growing.

Then in 2015, Ernst Seeds started using GIS. For operations, the ability to see fertilizer and spray assignments on smart maps helped the company identify places that required more or less treatment.

“There are a lot of accidental experiments when a row is skipped, there’s overlap, or a different chemistry is used,” Ernst said. “When we go out in the field, we can see areas that thrive and other areas that do poorly. With GIS, we can answer why.”

Katy Flaherty, an agronomy expert and the GIS manager at Ernst Seeds, developed a GIS-powered work order management system that guides each phase of production, from planting and fertilizing to applying pesticides and harvesting. The system uses a combination of ArcGIS Survey123, ArcGIS Field Maps, and ArcGIS Dashboards to record data and visualize trends. Flaherty also uses ArcGIS Pro to analyze data from the field, layering it with historical crop records and real-time soil and weather data to uncover correlations.

“When we plan our fields across four counties, there are significant differences in what crops do well from north to south,” Flaherty said. “It’s very spatial aware farming, and that knowledge transfers to recommendations for customers.”

In one instance, this detailed level of monitoring led to a decision to stop using a product that harmed some plants. In another case, improvements in propagation for a species proved so fruitful that smaller plots would meet the demand.

Smart maps guide the company’s planting locations, irrigation system maintenance, and harvesting schedule. Staff use smart maps to track plant maturity and time seed harvests. Unlike corn and soybeans, which can sit in fields for months, some native seeds have only three days of viable harvest. Knowing when and where to harvest is crucial. Ernst Seeds sells 70% of the seeds it harvests every year, putting the rest in the ground for the next crop cycle.

In ArcGIS Pro, administrators and agronomists view short-term plans and historical information. The map views allows them to analyze passes over fields, coverage of treatments, quantities of materials, water drainage, and other variables to inform treatment decisions. (Image courtesy of Ernst Seeds)

Filling gaps and expanding geographic reach

Calvin Ernst, Andy’s father, started the thriving conservation seeds business in 1964 with a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation contract to supply seeds to revegetate highway rights-of-way. Over the next 50 years, the company made wild seed collecting forays across the US to add plants to its offerings. As species count and seed supply grew, so did work with a broader list of customers, including state and federal agencies.

The company has developed seed mixes tailored to specific regions, such as Maryland, northern Virginia, and coastal North Carolina. These seeds are adapted to thrive in the local weather and soil. By choosing native seeds, restoration project managers ensure plants are well-suited to the ecosystem and more resilient to changing climate conditions.

“A simple philosophy is to avoid plants in your seed mixes that would be planted at the southern edge of their historical range,” Ernst said, speaking to the growing need for heat-adapted plants.

This commitment to innovation comes at a cost—it takes time to establish every new species. But insights from GIS can accelerate that timeline.

“It can take seven to 10 years to figure out how to grow something,” Ernst said. “If our observations cut that time down to five years, that’s a major win for us.”

Building native seeds capacity

One of the main challenges with native seed farming, according to Ernst agronomists, is the lack of knowledge of native seed production when compared to conventional row crops.

While the company has typically filled knowledge gaps itself, there have been times when an academic partnership has proved beneficial. For example, Ernst Seeds collaborated with researchers at the Center for Pollinator Research at Pennsylvania State University to identify the mix of flowering plants that could maximize pollinator food and breeding opportunities. The seed mixes developed through this partnership are now used across solar energy farms for revegetation.

The work on developing the right seed mix for solar farms made Ernst Seeds an ideal partner for the Virginia Solar Pollinator Program. Originally, Ernst Seeds was employed on the project by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation to guide a mix of native seeds for Virginia, but that work expanded.

Ernst Seeds experts then worked alongside the Clifton Institute to gather seeds across Virginia, from the Coastal Plain to beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. They recorded the location and conditions of their findings using a GIS-powered mobile app on their phones. This knowledge will help in planting along corridor projects, such as land beneath the electric transmission lines that will deliver energy from solar farms in rural areas to businesses and households in urban centers.

From its start with solar projects, the program evolved into the Virginia Native Seed Pilot Project to launch a native seed industry in Virginia. The program identifies local growers who can produce native seeds at a commercial scale and shows them how data from GIS helps guide best practices.

Tractor operators record their observations and have access to historical data as they work the fields. (Image courtesy of Ernst Seeds)

“Creating a GIS-centric culture at Ernst has changed how managers and operators work the fields,” Flaherty said. “We aren’t only looking at maps and numbers, we’re utilizing and making the data work for us every day.”

A data-driven approach to farming can be tough to instill in farmers working the same fields with the same approach for decades.

“Early on, we had pushback about the need to collect different information,” Ernst said. “Then in one meeting, we had a big lights-come-on moment when the answers we needed came from the data they’d been collecting. The guys were saying, ‘I know what we did there,’ but when we looked at the records their memory wasn’t as good as they thought it was.”

Learn more about how GIS is used to intelligently manage agriculture.

This article originally appeared on Esri Blog.

<p>The post Seeds of change: Ernst Seeds uses data-driven approach to restore habitats first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Image: GEODNET

The GEODNET Foundation has received more than $2 million of strategic investments from new investors including CoinFund, Pantera, VanEck and Santiago R. Santos. The additional funds raised will support the Foundation’s near-term objectives of decentralization and developer accessibility.

GEODNET, the company’s blockchain-based global navigation network, has more than 5,000 GNSS reference stations added to its real-time kinematic (RTK) network, designed to enhance location and intelligent autonomy services. Standard GPS is typically off by two meters; however, devices connected to GEODNET’s global RTK network are designed to achieve instant accuracy within 1 cm to 2 cm.

The network can be used in agriculture, UAVs, consumer robotic devices and commercial global positioning services such as PPP precision point positioning (PPP), automotive-focused PPP-RTK services and low-Earth orbit satellite tracking.

GEODNET has more than 4,000 registered reference stations in more than 2,500 cities across 120 countries. It is designed to provide robust precision navigation systems to a variety of industries, including self-driving cars, agriculture, consumer robots, and more. An additional 2,000 stations are being delivered and installed.

<p>The post GEODNET concludes $2M investment round first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Credit: ComNav

ComNav Technologies has introduced the AG502 automated steering system. It integrates advanced satellite reception, positioning, navigation and automatic driving to meet the diverse demands of modern agriculture.

The system consists of a GNSS tablet, an electric steering wheel, two angle sensors and two GNSS antennas, offering a plug-and-play capability with simple instillation and calibration. It is equipped with a ComNav SinoGNSS to support full-constellation and multi-frequency tracking.

It is designed to withstand harsh outdoor agricultural environments. With waterproof and dustproof properties, the system offers weather resistance and durability in diverse conditions.

The AG502 is equipped with connectivity modules, featuring a 4G modem alongside UHF radio. It offers farmers the flexibility to access real-time kinematics (RTK) correction sources from local RTK networks or GNSS RTK base stations. It uses the combined GNSS+INS terrain compensation technology to provide automated steering accuracy, with a precision of 2.5 cm. This level of precision makes the system ideal for tasks such as ditching, planting and harvesting.

For the remotely located or often network-lacking fields, the system offers a reliable precision point positioning (PPP) solution, which supports PPP-HAS and PPP-B2b service. It also features intuitive and user-friendly 2D/3D software, streamlining the learning and operation process for easy start-up. It supports various work modes such as straight, curved, automatic u-turn and pivot to accommodate diverse farmland and work requirements.

ComNav offers comprehensive training videos of the AG502. In the event of technical challenges, users have access to remote technical support or can reach out to local dealers via phone, email or messaging apps for prompt assistance.

<p>The post ComNav launches auto-steering system first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Image: Septentrio

Septentrio has released the AntaRx-Si3, a GNSS/INS smart antenna housed in an ultra-rugged enclosure, designed for straightforward installation on machinery such as agricultural robots. It combines Septentrio’s centimeter-level GNSS positioning with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) within the same enclosure as the GNSS antenna, which uses FUSE+ technology.

The AntaRx-Si3 is designed for challenging industrial environments where GNSS signals are at risk of obstruction, such as under heavy foliage. The integration of the IMU sensor with FUSE+ technology offers continued position availability accuracy and reliability, which is necessary for autonomous systems’ operations.

The antenna’s exterior is crafted from impact-resistant polycarbonate with an IP69K rating and can withstand significant shocks, vibrations, and harsh environmental conditions.

It uses Septentrio’s GNSS+ algorithms to offer advanced multipath mitigation to operate in environments where satellite signals could be reflected off surrounding machinery or structures, such as silos. The antenna delivers high update rates and low latency positioning, which are crucial for the control loops of autonomous movements or rotations.

<p>The post Septentrio releases GNSS/INS smart antenna for industrial environments first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Image: Seirrowon

I asked Jason O’Flanagan, co-founder and CEO of Seirrowon Labs — which specializes in robotic vehicle control, electronics hardware and firmware development — about the company’s collaboration with u-blox on precision agriculture.

What is your background and your company’s origin story?

I’ve been doing precision agriculture for 25 years. I started with Beeline, which was the first company to do automated steering of agricultural equipment, late in the last millennium. I worked for many of the big OEMs, including Kubota and AGCO. I saw an opportunity for GNSS solutions and products. Obviously, there’s a lot of competition there, but we wanted to focus on fixed row crops and orchards because GNSS does not work well in an urban canyon-type scenario. So, there was a niche there for us to jump on.

Were you the company’s co-founder?

Yes, I am one of the company’s co-founders. The company’s name, Seirrowon, is actually “no worries” spelled backward.

I know that you’re working with u-blox.

We’re using both hardware and services products from u-blox. We’re using both their normal RTK receiver and their sensor fusion GNSS receiver. We started looking at u-blox, NovAtel, Trimble and Septentrio. However, we settled on u-blox as its mix of services and hardware were the best suited to our business model. They provide a fully unlocked, fully functional receiver out of the gate.

In the fixed crop, orchard situation, having as many satellites as possible really helps with your position. So, from a hardware standpoint, it was a perfect solution for us. It allowed us to track up to 85 satellites (two channels each) at a time in adverse conditions. Their sensor fusion version, which is their ZED-F9R, allowed us to fill in the gaps when the GNSS became unusable under the tree foliage. The SL LITE is a generic RTK receiver and the SL LITE-R includes sensor fusion and the SL Pro uses their L band receiver with the sensor fusion module.

What value do you add to u-blox’s modules?

All they give us is the raw GNSS. We add some IP functionality and support. U-blox outputs its data in a certain format, which is not really applicable to the ag industry. So, we map out the data to get it in the right format that will work for a lot of the equipment that’s in the marketplace.
Second, we added a support server to it so that it backs up its settings to a remote server. So, if customers go down, we can flash their replacement receiver and overnight them back to them. The customers are also able to turn on remote support where we can see the data from the receiver and diagnose issues remotely. Our dealers have the same access.

We’ve added a support mechanism into our hardware that allows for better remote support without having to wait hours for someone to get to the field or diagnose an issue. We’ve also added remote updating for support and software. So, the customer can update and add new features remotely without us having to send someone out to do that.

Basically, what ag uses violates several of the NMEA conventions. For example, NMEA limits the number of satellite outputs to show 12, but in the ag world all GNSS receivers output the actual number of satellites, using the correction in the NMEA 183 message.

How does the NMEA data format differ from what’s need in agriculture?

Raw GNSS is not sufficient for an active moving solution. Regardless of what GNSS supplier we ultimately chose, the solution provided in GNSS via raw NMEA was not suitable for autonomous or mapping applications by itself. We spent a great deal of time tweaking our output to be best solution possible. This included adjusting for time, terrain and movement. Senor Fusion introduced its own unique issues that we worked through to create the best working solutions. I have spoken to several companies that tried to implement GNSS solutions expecting the raw modules and boards to work out of the box and have been left with a bad taste in their mouth.

In general terms the NMEA 0183 Standards for GGA and VTG don’t have the accuracy required for RTK/PPP performance without violating the length of string limit. We added some additional information to the GGA message to help diagnose issues with performance without needing extra logs and data to see performance. While this does not meet the NMEA 0183 spec it is mostly ignored by Ag equipment downstream. We are currently working with the AgGateway Organization to better use the NMEA spec for use in agricultural applications.

Who stores, aggregates and analyzes the data collected?

We’re not actually taking any position data. We’re just taking GNSS performance information, and the customer must opt in for that. So, it’s defaulted off; if the customer turns it on, it means that we get a complete set of their settings backed up to a server that we own. We have a server with a backup server. So, it comes to our server, and it’s just a just a general setting information that we’re using, and some performance information on satellite tracking, and other things that help us diagnose issues with the receiver. It’s not performance information as far as their location or how they use the receiver. It’s more diagnostic information only.

What is involved in installing your equipment on tractors, combines, sprayers, and so forth? What kind of support do you provide? I assume that you’re brand-agnostic.

We designed our receiver so that anyone can install it. We took a lot of the complications out of it. We use industry standard Deutsch connectors and our device’s user interface is HTML. So, you can use any smartphone or laptop or any device that has WiFi in it to set up the device. There’s no special software required, there are no special cables; you just connect to it as if were a hotspot. You can actually set it up completely from there.
We’ve simplified everything to make sure that users don’t need a degree in GNSS or in engineering to install the receiver. It’s very straightforward. It has several pre-configured profiles within it that allow you to take a generic setup and say, “Hey, I’m putting you here,” so it will default to all the correct settings. We really want to make it as simple and straightforward as possible.

How does it interface with the machine’s steering control?

To interface with the vehicle, we use standard NMEA 0183. We have all the hardware for NMEA 2000 CANBUS but that will come in early 2024.

So, typically, growers just buy the device and have one of their team members put it on?

We normally sell through dealers and OEMs. They incorporate it into their solution. For example one of our dealers uses a system called Weedit. Basically, the distributor incorporates that receiver into each scenario that they have. They must record all that information for EPA in California, so they know exactly what chemicals they put where. So, GPS becomes incredibly important within those orchards to know exactly where the chemical was applied, because they must submit that information.

So, the dealer does the integration onto the machine?

The OEM. However, it is available as a drop-in replacement for any of the old legacy receivers such as Raven receivers that fail over time and some of the other older equipment. So, a general customer that uses Raven equipment can put our receiver in to replace it. I’m just using Raven in this example because it’s a US company that has basically disappeared.

So, it’s not factory-installed and it’s not usually installed by the user, but the dealership put it onto a machine before selling it?

We have dealers and distributors, but it can be installed by an end user as a replacement for a failed old piece of equipment.

Is any of our equipment factory-installed?

No. Not with the big guys anyway. They’re all tied up with their own GNSS at the moment. AGCO is in a pending joint venture with Trimble, CNH Industrial has bought Hemisphere GNSS and Deere has its own offering. So, the big guys all have their own GNSS solutions for now.
The consolidation in the industry is very interesting. I find it curious that in some of the mergers and joint ventures are combinations where both parties already have similar offerings.

Perhaps it’s still evolving.

It sounds like it’s still in the early phases of agreement.

What is the typical use case for your technology?

We have a generalized solution, that would be equivalent to, say, a SMART7 from NovAtel. It’s designed for row crop work out in the field and functionality within the standard operations that you get for GNSS receivers within agriculture. Our offering includes the LITE, which is a generic RTK receiver, and the LITE-R and PRO, which use active sensor fusion to allow us to function better in orchards and fixed crops that have obstructions to the sky.

I’m concentrating on the orchards and fixed crop market because none of the main OEMs that are out there doing GNSS are taking any time with that market, so that’s where we see our niche.

I looked after all the North American support and product direction when I was at AGCO and there was nothing more frustrating than having a product that was complicated to use, difficult to set up, and required multiple people to touch it to make it work. With that in mind, we developed our products to be very simple, very straightforward, able to diagnose most of their problems by themselves, and as functional as possible without having to have someone go out and spend time on diagnosing issues. Our devices are intelligent enough to do that. While generating our product, and putting it into the marketplace, we have spent a lot of time thinking about how to support our customers by avoiding complications and downstream issues.

What else differentiates your company from your competitors?

We have PPP correction services from both satellites from the Internet — similar to services provided by Trimble and NovAtel. However, the industry standard is to only offer a three-month or 12-month subscription, while we offer it monthly. So, you can actually activate it with a phone on the device, purchase a one-month subscription and just use it in the months that you need it. So, a farmer who needs it for only two months in the spring and three months in the fall can pay for only those months instead of having to pay for the whole year. We’re trying to make it as usable and as targeted toward farmers as possible. Through Pointperfect from Ublox. We sell this under our brand name of Flat Earth PPP. (We thought this was a funny name that makes fun of the flat earther movement given that GNSS works because the world is a sphere.)

What else distinguishes your products?

Our receivers are completely unlocked and ready to go out of the gate, without nickel and diming customers or holding features back from them. When they pay for the system, they get everything. If you are going to unlock a feature on a NovAtel or Trimble receiver, you have to get back to the dealership, they then have to use some e-commerce system to purchase that Auth code, then they either give the customer this huge, 64-character code, or someone has to come out and make that change. We don’t have to do any of that. Everything’s unlocked and ready to go.
Our use case is focused on a low profile, a small footprint, and a ruggedized enclosure. We came up with a unique design of antenna that resulted in reduced size without losing any performance. As a result, our receiver is only 35mm tall, 100mm wide and 180mm long. We have filed a patent on this unique design. We also designed it for most agricultural environments by having protection on all IO and the ability to be powered from 9-36V to meet the requirements of both US and European agricultural applications.

Because of the low-profile requirement, we needed a receiver module that is mounted to the board directly instead of a separate receiver board that would have made the enclosure taller.

<p>The post Seirrowon full interview first appeared on GPS World.</p>

CHCNav’s NX510 SE GNSS RTK auto-steering system helps growers achieve the precision required for specialized planting operations. (Image: CHCNAV)

CHC Navigation’s NX510 SE GNSS RTK auto-steering system helps growers around the world achieve the precision required for specialized planting operations.

Intercropping. Growing two or more crops together in the same field, known as intercropping, is a sustainable and effective agricultural practice that is being adopted worldwide to increase yields. It is a bit counter-intuitive because it forces the different crops to compete for water, light, and nutrients. However, if the plants are carefully selected, their seeds are correctly spaced, and their growth is properly managed, it can be a recipe for success. For example, legumes, such as soybeans, which are good at nitrogen-fixing, can provide nitrogen to corn, thereby reducing the need for additional nitrogen fertilizer and the concomitant risk of chemical runoff. Mixing these two plant species also increases biodiversity and ecological stability. However, if the seeding is not planned carefully and executed precisely, the corn’s tall stalks will shade the soybeans’ short stems and reduce their yields.

Mr. Chen, a farmer and president of Agricultural Machinery in Anhui, China, co-crops corn and soybeans in the same field. To seed them precisely, he relies on CHCNAV’s NX510, which has a pass-to-pass accuracy of ±2.5 cm. Prior to using an automated steering system, his yields suffered because his seed rows were not straight. The system makes planting a simple task: the operator sets the row spacing for crops and the tractor automatically maintains it. Operators can also share those patterns among multiple farm machines, greatly increasing efficiency.

Growing rice. About half of the world’s population — especially in Asia, South America, and sub-Saharan Africa — relies on rice as its staple food. China is consistently ranked among the top 10 rice-producing countries due to its ability to cultivate it during two to three rice-growing seasons per year. Rice farmers around the world share challenges, including resource depletion due to soil degradation, urbanization, the effects of climate change, and a shrinking labor force, especially skilled labor.
Every rice planting season is a race against time and requires optimizing efficiency, including executing precise, straight-line planting operations to accurately align the new rice crop with previously established rows of seedlings. Any inaccuracy can sharply reduce rice yields. This is a key concern in China, which has only 0.02 hectares of rice land per capita. It is also vital to achieve sustainability and minimize environmental impact.

In a recent application, the NX510 has been successfully integrated into rice transplanters used to plant rice seedlings in swampy soils in China. It ensured that rice seedlings were planted at consistent depths and in the correct vertical and horizontal positions, promoting adequate ventilation and optimal light exposure for their subsequent growth.

NX510 SE. The NX510 SE utilizes five satellite constellations — GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou and QZSS — and multiple correction sources, including 4G RTK networks and UHF RTK stations. Its built-in 4G and UHF modem connects to all industry-standard DGPS and RTK corrections and its terrain compensation technology maintains high accuracy even in challenging environments and terrain. The receiver’s 10.1-inch industrial display, operating on the AgNav multilingual software, supports multiple guidelines patterns, including AB line, A+ line, circle line, irregular curve and headland turn, to handle all common farming operations.

The NX510 autosteering system delivers significant productivity gains at a cost accessible to nearly every farm, making it suitable for retrofitting old and new farm vehicles. An additional advantage of autosteering is that it enables growers to maintain the same high level of accuracy when operating at night, which is often required to escape the oppressive daytime heat or to meet tight schedules.

<p>The post Auto-steering helps to plant corn, soybeans and rice first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Trimble’s WeedSeeker 2 automatic spot spray system uses advanced optics and processing power to detect and eliminate resistant weeds. (Image: Trimble)

In September 2023, Trimble announced an agreement to form a joint venture (JV) with AGCO “to better serve farmers with factory fit and aftermarket applications in the mixed fleet precision agriculture market.” I discussed the announcement with David Britton, vice president of product management, Trimble Agriculture.

Your press release says “Trimble and AGCO’s shared vision is to create a global leader in mixed fleet, smart farming, and autonomy solutions.” What does mixed fleet mean in this context?

That’s focused on the farmers’ ability to use any brand of tractor or implement together. As you can imagine, there are multiple OEMs in the market. One of the beliefs that Trimble’s had, and that AGCO shares, and why this JV makes sense, is that the farmers’ decisions around what technology they use and the way that their farms operate shouldn’t be inextricably tied to the brand of tractor that they use.

So, they could use an AGCO tractor, but with a GNSS receiver that’s not from Trimble or vice versa?

More so that on their farm they could have equipment from AGCO and other OEMs. In many cases, they’ll have more than one tractor and multiple different implements.

Those machines can talk to each other and share the data.

Ideally, yes.

Image: Trimble

What will be the division of labor between Trimble and AGCO? How will the interface work?

The JV will not be involved with any of the tractor manufacturing, which will stay within AGCO. We’re going to be focused on the precision ag technology that will go into the tractor, help manage the implements, and complete the work, as well as the data systems that underpin that.

Currently, Trimble Ag has capabilities on embedded display software that are used to help manage activities in the field and steer the vehicle. We also have cloud software that allows farmers to manage their information and data and work with other people in their ecosystem, as well as many other things. That’s all going into the JV. Trimble will supply GNSS technology to the JV, which is a foundation to enable geolocating the information in the activities.

Then you have JCA Industries [which AGCO acquired in 2022] that has been focused on implement control and autonomy. So, the two businesses are complementary. They are coming together to focus on higher technology components and then work with both AGCO as well as other manufacturers and the aftermarket to deliver smart farming and autonomy solutions into the farm to help farmers run their businesses and farms more efficiently.

Tell me more about the aftermarket.

One of the key things that we’ve seen historically, and we expect the trend to continue, is that you’ll see innovation happen in the aftermarket first, because it gives a chance to rapidly iterate and learn before you go through the process of putting it into the factory. We expect that we’ll have a very healthy aftermarket business, as well as a portion of the business where our technology will be factory-fit into machines from both AGCO and other manufacturers, because that’s been an important part of the Trimble business. Being able to work with other OEMs to provide important technologies will be a part of that story.

Are you still expecting the deal to close in the first half of 2024?

That’s still the target.

Will the JV sell anything or will it be totally transparent to the user?

The JV will have its own channel to the aftermarket, as well as people working with OEMs from a sales perspective. In terms of branding, that’s something that’s being evaluated right now. Ultimately, the JV will have a channel to the aftermarket and we also have our own relationships with OEMs through which we will continue to sell. So, the end customers should be aware that they’re purchasing technology that has been built by the JV.

Under a name or branding that is still to be determined?

Yes.

Over time, the JV will become the main way for Trimble to sell its precision ag equipment.

Correct. Trimble will go into the ag market primarily through the JV.

Will Trimble also continue to sell to other OEMs other than AGCO?

Trimble will sell ag equipment to other ag OEMs via the JV.

Image: Trimble

Does that mean that AGCO, through the JV, will sell equipment to some of its competitors?

My understanding is they already have businesses that do that currently. Their Precision Planting business works with other OEMs as well as other businesses that they’ve brought into the AGCO family. So, it’s not new for AGCO to have a part of the business that is selling to OEMs in some ways. Trimble has some experience with that as well.

We recognize that it’ll be important for our customers to trust that their data is being managed appropriately. That said, it’s a great way for other OEMs to have access to scale. As we talk about what needs to happen for precision ag to realize the opportunity that comes with technology, scale is going to become increasingly important, which I think is a part of why this JV is so exciting for both Trimble and AGCO. Ultimately, it should be exciting for farmers as well because it’s going to create a very well scaled business that can help provide technology very effectively.

Who will collect, aggregate, analyze, and control the data? How will farmers access it?

We’ll continue to work with the end customers and to find ways that we can ensure that they have the right access to and ownership of their data, while also looking for ways that we can use anonymized data to enhance product functionality.

Is that an opt in or an opt out?

The JV’s policy on that has not been determined yet.

For which crops or scenarios do you expect the greatest adoption of the JV’s technology?

There are places where you see the adoption of precision ag technology more than others, in terms of larger scale farms and high value crops. Ultimately, we take pride in being a global business, which means that we’re thinking about all areas of the globe, as well as multiple crop types. So, every region has crops that are particularly important to it. We try very much to build solutions that fit those local markets, while also leveraging what we can from a scale perspective. There isn’t one particular crop type or one particular region that dominates our thinking at this point.

Trimble has its RTX correction service. Does AGCO have its own?

Trimble will keep RTX but also make it available to the JV and to AGCO, which does not have its own solution. So, RTX is a very good fit. That’s one of the benefits you see in the JV. We’ve already been working with them from an RTX perspective on receivers that we’ve provided. So, we’re more excited to continue that through the JV.

Will the JV come up with any new tiers for corrections?

The JV will work with Trimble to come up with what’s right for the market. As you’ve seen RTX evolve over the years, we’ll continue that process working with Trimble to figure out the right tiers and the right solution for what the farmers need.

<p>The post Joint venture promises to better serve farmers first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Deep Sand Technology (DST), an autosteering and precision agriculture company, and the GEODNET Foundation have partnered to bring precision agriculture real-time kinematic (RTK) services to rural North America.

GEODNET-compatible RTK bases will be immediately available, which support centimeter-accurate operations without the need to install an ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio link.

The partnership between DST and GEODNET aims to offer affordable high-accuracy RTK-based GPS access into key U.S. agricultural and rural areas for precision agriculture, advanced cruise control systems, automated highway trucking operations and eco-friendly robotic lawnmowers.

The GEODNET RTK network comprises more than 3,600 stations globally, covering over 1,800 cities in 100+ countries as of 2023.

<p>The post GEODNET, DST enhance precision agriculture in North America first appeared on GPS World.</p>