Machinery
About a month ago, I was flattered by an invitation to attend John Deere's Media tour prior to the Farm Progress show. I decided to accept the invitation thinking I might learn something valuable to my customers and readers. I am not going to tell you to only buy John Deere. I do understand that they were putting their best foot forward to impress the ag media in attendance.
We started off the day with a lurch followed by a factory tour. We spent a good deal of time watching the sprayer assembly line. The "factory" was clean and orderly. The whole area was under roof and climate controlled. Tour guides told us that all sprayers on the line were sold. They said that John Deere keeps no inventory of any farm equipment. No photography was allowed in the assembly line area.
Subject matter experts discussed "new" products available for maybe 3 hours. We learned about a high capacity nutrient applicator, row guidance for sprayers, Starfire GPS receivers, and Maxemerge row units.
Of interest to me was the number of partnerships and cooperative agreements and joint ventures they discussed.
After a break, we went outdoors for some parking lot demonstrations and too look at some historic equipment. I will share more about the equipment tomorrow. We were able to mingle with the subject matter experts and ask individual quests during a reception and dinner. It was certainly an interesting adventure.
