By Eric Sfiligoj, CropLife magazine
Willoughby, OH — Perhaps no other ag equipment company has as much market presence as John Deere. Founded at the dawn of the agricultural age, the Moline, IL-based company spent much of its first 100 years perfecting farm equipment, from plows to tractors. And John Deere continued this focus on hardware as the 21st century began.
Back in the early 2000s, the company was just starting to make its mark in the self-propelled sprayers marketplace. Other large players at this time included Case IH and AGCO/Ag-Chem. Indeed, during the early 2000s when CropLife magazine would compile its annual CropLife 100 information, market share numbers among the nation’s top ag retailers showed John Deere sprayers ranking a distant third.
However, this slowly changed over the preceding years. By the time the 2020 CropLife 100 numbers were tabulated, John Deere had become the top self-propelled sprayers supplier to the nation’s largest ag retailers, garnering 33% market share vs. 30% for AGCO and 29% for Case IH. Today, the company is approaching 40% market share vs. other self-propelled sprayer manufacturers.
Helping this effort came in 2016, when John Deere as entered a joint venture with Hagie Manufacturing, the U.S. market leader in high-clearance sprayers. Equipment made by the joint venture continued to carry the Hagie brand while sales and service for equipment were integrated into John Deere’s global distribution channel.
“Hagie Manufacturing is known for innovation and its strong customer understanding in high-clearance spraying equipment,” said John May, then President, Agricultural Solutions and Chief Information Officer, of the deal. “High-clearance spraying equipment is a new market for Deere. The expertise at Hagie allows John Deere to immediately serve customers who need precision solutions that extend their window for applying nutrients.”
Blue River Acquisition
A year later in 2017, John Deere made its next important acquisition, this time focusing on technology. In September of that year, the company acquired Blue River Technology for $305 million. At the time, Blue River was designed systems utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) for identifying weeds in the field.
Within a few years, John Deere adapted this AI technology to its self-propelled sprayers, allowing for custom applicators and growers to “spot spray” specific weeds as their units rolled through the field. Thus, See & Spray became the poster child for Smart Tech involving targeted vs. broadcast application work.
“The cameras that are the eyes of the system, and computer processors attached to the boom are the brains,” said Franklin Peitz, then Marketing Manager, Sprayers, in a 2022 interview explaining See & Spray, “The cameras are constantly scanning, and the processors are identifying the images of what’s a weed and what’s a crop and sending a signal to the nozzle where the weed is to only spray the weed.”
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