For the last four years, Planet and Corteva, a global pure-play agriculture company that provides a diverse mix of seed, crop protection and digital solutions to farmers around the world, have been building and providing joint solutions to growers allowing them to more seamlessly monitor crop health and boost productivity. In July 2021, Planet entered into a definitive merger agreement with dMY Technology Group, Inc. IV (NYSE: DMYQ), a special purpose acquisition company, to become a publicly traded company.

The collaboration began even before the formation of Corteva Agriscience and has grown in large part due to the collaboration and the chance Corteva Agriscience and Planet took on one another.

“If we look back at the beginning, the focus was about how we were going to create value for the agriculture industry together, specifically, for the grower. Today, we still have that same mentality that we are figuring it out together,”

said John Davidson, Senior Director of Product at Granular, a wholly owned subsidiary of Corteva Agriscience.

To date, the companies have accelerated technology offerings side-by-side, working together and co-developing big ideas and visions to create a mutually beneficial relationship.

“It’s been about collaboration and that spirit of trying to achieve and create unique value into the agriculture sector,”

said Davidson.

“It is hard to do what Planet is doing. There are a lot of hurdles to getting so many satellites in orbit. Beyond that, we have walked into this collaboration with a strong set of expectations. We have numerous use cases that echo our customers’ needs and have pushed Planet to meet the requirements for data to serve those use cases,”

said Dr. Christopher Seifert, Vice President of Data Science at Granular.

One of the ways this collaboration has grown is through the sheer scale of imagery Corteva consumes, here Corteva has played a key role in pushing Planet to expand its scale on a daily basis across all industries.

“We may not be the largest consumer, but on a daily scale basis, I think we are consistently pushing the limits of the scalability of the services,”

said Davidson.

During this time, Planet has scaled not only its offerings but also the customer base as well, serving more than 600 customers and 200 partners, always keeping the customer experience at the forefront. This relationship has enabled both companies to expand as big players in each of their respective markets. Through the years, Corteva and Planet have collaborated to optimize Planet’s products and data for the greatest output.

“We’re definitely maturing in the view of where Planet data is the best fit for much of what we’re doing. Research and development (R&D) has driven some of that, previous geographic expansion of the offerings has also driven some of that. It took us a while to get moving and really consume a lot of the Planet data and figuring out how to leverage it, and then it took off pretty quickly,”

said Seifert.

“Right now, we’re using Planet imagery in Argentina, Brazil, the EU, Canada, and all over the world with some of our seed production as well,”

said Davidson.

Since the Corteva team has shown the growers how to look at the data, the number of applications from the growers and farmers has grown substantially. As a farm operation becomes larger or more geographically spaced out, the ability to see what is going on quickly becomes important.

“A lot of our farmers have many thousands of acres that they’re working with and they may be spread out over multiple counties. They’re trying to understand and figure out what to do very quickly. Both PlanetScope and SkySat enable growers to see what is happening and detect actual problems,”

said Davidson.

“And this is what we do with our directed scouting product: enable growers to detect changes in their fields to help them understand what is going on and which ones to tend to first. Being able to go and be that trusted advisor for the farmers that they work with is critical. This is one of the tools that they must be ahead of the game. It allows them to use their time more wisely and pinpoint the areas most critical to look at,”

said Seifert.

For growers, the most crucial data to pair with satellite data is historical yield data.

“Growers can see the differences in their fields versus where it was a few days ago or a week ago and determine if the field is historically high-performing, or low-performing. Having that knowledge in Granular® Insights is exceedingly useful as well as planted data. To know what you planted in various places and see if there’s some troubleshooting you can do. Every additional data layer that you can add to Planet data is a way of troubleshooting problems that you might be seeing. You can look at Planet on one side and you can look at what crops you planted or even look at the historical harvest without ever stepping foot in the fields. It’s pretty miraculous just looking at all this data they have and being able to process it really quickly and understand how it all fits together,”

added Davidson.

“We’re tracking large swaths of the planet on a daily basis to detect changes as quickly as possible. There are parts of the world that are exceptionally cloudy and so being able to pull different data sets together creates the potential for real value. Using fusion to fix those problems could open up some very productive parts of the globe for us,”

said Seifert. He added:

“Planet, with its innovation and setting up smaller satellites to get more frequent data collection, helps boost the ability to innovate and to help provide value for farmers in a number of areas.,”

Through this collaboration, Corteva and Planet have maintained a strict focus on enabling progress in the agriculture sector. With this shared focus, Planet continues to expand its offerings to new and existing markets, making change visible, accessible, and actional to industries across the globe.

The post Future of Farming: Driving Farmer Value through Satellite-Powered Directed Scouting appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

These new attachments offerings help operators who work on street repairs, leveling uneven pavement, texturing pavement and cleaning around larger milling machines. The CP18E, CP24E and CP30E are compatible with John Deere skid steers and compact track loaders, as well as equipment offered by competitors.

“The E-Series cold planers are new solutions for our customers seeking more efficiency on the job by enabling all cold planer functions to be controlled from within the machine’s cab,”

says Jessica Hill, program manager, global attachments at John Deere.

“The attachments deliver value to our customers through increased productivity and uptime, while maintaining low daily operating costs.”

The CP18E, CP24E and CP30E cold planer attachments are equipped with a heavy-duty planetary drive system that delivers high torque speed for the toughest and most demanding jobs. The planetary drive system is a wheel drive, which allows the operator to remove the side plate when the attachment works next to a curb, making it ideal for use in tight spaces. Through complete in-cab controls, operators can easily maneuver the cold planer depth, tilt and side shift to increase overall productivity. With rear spoil clearance that reaches up to 9 inches (229 mm), operators can be more productive on the job by minimizing material that is pushed back into the cut.

Operators can expect an increase in uptime with the visible case pressure reservoir that was added to the three models to provide a visual indicator of high case pressure. If there is high case pressure, the reservoir will fill with oil and will give an indication to shut down the system so operators can spend less time waiting for maintenance and more time working. Additionally, the case pressure reservoir helps reduce contamination to the machine’s hydraulic system to maintain machine health and longevity overall.

The high-capacity gearbox on the CP18E, CP24E and CP30E cold planers includes a drain-and-refill plug for clean and easy maintenance fills, using only a funnel to keep daily operating costs low. Additionally, oil will need to be replaced after 1,000 hours or on an annual basis. Operators should reference the operator’s manual for appropriate procedure and maintenance requirements.

Source: John Deere

The post John Deere Introduces New E-Series Cold Planer Attachments appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.