I’m down in Louisville, Ky., this week for the Moving Iron Summit. This morning, Quint Pottinger, a no-tiller based here in Kentucky was part of a farmer panel discussion focused on the financial pressure on today’s producers. A lot of the questions posed to Pottinger had to do with the big steps he made in the last year as it related to autonomy.
Looking to slash equipment costs, Pottinger sold his two big-frame 8000-series John Deere tractors and two 40-foot 16-row planters and replaced them with a small 135-horsepower John Deere tractor and a 20-foot 8-row planter.
But the big kicker? He was going to start planting all his crops autonomously.
As Technology Editor Noah Newman wrote this summer, Pottinger bought a Sabanto autonomy kit, which retrofits to the 135-horsepower tractor. It includes antennas, a dual GNSS receiver, obstacle-detection sensors and video cameras.
Equipped with Sabanto, Panorama and Starlink, Pottinger became the first farmer in the Bluegrass State to plant his entire crop with a driverless tractor, joining fewer than 50 farms nationwide, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.
Pottinger says by selling the equipment he was able to reinvest the money back into the community.
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