Old tractors go high-tech as equipment manufacturers compete

Illinois farmer Leon Adams’ corn planter sits at the center of a strategy by AGCO Corp. to expand in the world of agricultural machinery dominated by Deere & Co.

The Deere 1770NT model was built in 2010 and painted in the company’s iconic green and yellow, but the high-tech attachments that actually insert seeds into the ground, 24 rows at a time, are built by AGCO’s Precision Planting brand.

AGCO is focusing on retrofitting used tractors made by it, Deere or other manufacturers. It’s offering souped-up gear to make tractors smarter, betting farmers are eager to upgrade to the latest technology while also saving on costs.

“What we’re targeting is essentially the 93% of the customers that don’t buy new every year,” AGCO Chief Executive Officer Eric Hansotia said in an interview with Bloomberg last month at the Precision Planting headquarters in Tremont, Illinois.

Retrofitting existing tractors “allows a much lower price point for them to get that new-feature capability without having to change over the entire machine,” Hansotia said.

Deere recently partnered with Elon Musk’s SpaceX for that purpose. More advanced growers are retrofitting with components such as Deere’s artificial-

intelligence powered sprayer that can tell the difference between a crop and a weed.