Last night (Jan. 8), the judge set a new trial date of June 5, 2017, in the Deere-Precision Planting merger case.

The Des Moines Register reports attorneys for Kinze filed motions asking a federal judge to stop John Deere from trying to access a wide variety of internal documents about the Williamsburg company's planting equipment business, including marketing strategies, sales data and research and development plans.

The month was dominated by coverage of the ongoing lawsuit over John Deere's acquisition of Precision Planting and the major manufacturer's agreement with Ag Leader.

One of the precision markets often identified by dealers as holding the most revenue potential is planter technology. Recent years have seen the debut and development of electric drives, high-speed seed delivery meters and hydraulic down force systems.

Dawn Equipment serves notice to Precision Planting and Ag Leader over patents related to hydraulic down pressure control for row crop planters.

Deere & Co. responded to the Dept. of Justice’s complaint to the Deere’s acquisition of Precision Planting.