John Deere brings autonomous tillage operation to farmers

DECATUR, Ill. — Farmers can complete tillage operations autonomously with John Deere technology.

“This 9RX tractor with a field cultivator allows a customer to pull into a field that they have previously mapped, set how he wants his tillage done, adjust the tool, leave the field and allow the machine to till that field without an operator,” said Michael Porter, John Deere go-to-market manager for large tractors and tillage, from the company’s display area at the Farm Progress Show.

Farmers have the ability to control and monitor the equipment by using a cellphone and the John Deere Operations Center mobile app.

“They are able to see what the machine is doing, its progress throughout the day, and make adjustments to the tool or speed via the cameras remotely,” Porter said. “If the tractor does come upon an obstacle, they are able to give it instructions to go around it and continue in the field.”

As a result, farmers can be working on something else as the tillage job is completed.

“Usually farmers are doing tillage in the fall with harvest or in the spring before planting, which are both really busy times,” the manager said. “So, this allows them to go run the combine or haul grain while the tractor is running autonomously.”

Or, in the spring, Porter said, a farmer can start the machine in the field, go home, sleep through the night and wake up to a field ready to be planted.

“The equipment decides how to get the work done with the technology that we’ve used for many years, including AutoTrac, AutoPath and mapping those fields,” he said. “Now we’re adding 16 cameras. That replaces the operator in the cab.”

“With AutoTrac, the tractor knows where it is going and the cameras are responsible for detecting obstacles,” Porter said.

“It has 16 eyes and we only have two, so it’s picking up a lot more than you or I could,” he said. “And it’s able to stop quicker than we would be able to react, so safety is forefront — we can’t have this machine working without being as safe as it possibly can.”

Currently, the Autonomy Precision Upgrade is for corn and soybean fields in the Midwest, Porter said.

“This fall will be our biggest season yet in terms of the number of machines running,” he said. “We’re focused on making sure this is optimized for tillage and then will work on expanding to new areas.”

Today, farmers can utilize this autonomous technology with field cultivators, vertical tillage tools, high-speed disks and chisel plows.

“We will continue to add more implements every year,” Porter said.

“This is retrofit technology so the good news is we can add this technology to a lot of older machines and go back to some 2017 and newer tillage tools,” he said. “The two main pieces that each tillage tool will need are lights along the back to help light the machine up at night and a StarFire receiver.”

For tractors, some components will need to be added, such as brake valves and a StarFire receiver.

“All that is included with our camera kit,” Porter said. “Farmers can install the kit, they can take their equipment to a dealer or we have mobile crews that can come to the farm to do it.”

New Combines

“In model year 2025 the two big things that were added to our combines were Predictive Ground Speed Automation and Harvest Settings Automation,” said Tim Ford, John Deere combine specialist.

“For Predictive Ground Speed Automation, forward-looking cameras, as well as satellite views, tell the combine if it should speed up or slow down as it goes through the field,” he said. “We are seeing a 20% increase in productivity with this feature.”

With Harvest Settings Automation, farmers can set acceptable limits for grain loss, foreign material and broken grain.

“It keeps the machine working really well and takes the burden away from the operator and puts it on the automation,” Ford said. “So, it’s a teammate in the cab to help you out.”

There are some additional feature enhancements for model year 2026 John Deere combines.

“If you bought a model year 2025 combine, all you have to do is upgrade your software to get the model year 2026 features,” Ford said.

The AutoTrac Turn Automation is hands-free technology that turns the combine at the end of the row.

“Now when you get to the end rows, the header will raise and lower for you,” Ford said.

“The Auto Unload feature requires an additional camera,” he said. “Using the Machine Sync technology, all you have to do is pull up to the grain cart and unload and the system will work back and forth to build that pile evenly in the grain cart.”

John Deere is focused on providing information to operators without overwhelming them, Ford said.

“We want solutions for expert operators who really want to tinker and get more and more out of their machine,” the combine specialist said.

“We also want to make it walk-up approachable because we know an issue on a lot of farms is getting expert labor,” he said.

“We make it very outcome focused so the operator can decide the amount of throughput they want to get through the machine or set the limit for the amount of grain loss.”