John Deere made a wave of new precision-related product announcements over the last few weeks, one of them being MaxEmerge 5e and ExactEmerge meter upgrades. As Deere VP of Precision Upgrades Than Hartsock tells us here, the idea is to make it easier for farmers to invest in precision technology without having to buy a completely new row unit.

“A lot of farmers are familiar with our high-speed planting system — ExactEmerge. If you want to add the ExactEmerge meter and the BrushBelt that delivers the seed down to the ground, we have these meter upgrades that make it easier for farmers to take a step instead of a whole step. We still have our Ultimate Planter Upgrade, which instead of just taking the meter and the drive step, you can pull off the whole row unit and buy all the row units together. That’s positioned well for planters that may be older (2010-2012), where more of the traditional parts on the planter row unit might be warn. We make that easier to pop that off and put on a whole new row unit with these technologies integrated. In summary, you can take steps or do the ultimate and plug a whole row unit in.”

Deere also just announced the release of an autonomy precision upgrade kit for select tractor models that brings autonomy to tillage work. Head to PrecisionFarmingDealer.com for more information on that news.