John Deere unveiled ExactShot, a sensor and robotic system that applies starter fertilizer with precision at planting. It cuts fertilizer use while improving efficiency and crop yields, addressing waste in a process that has stayed largely unchanged for decades.
These advancements in cloud technology, combined with sensors, compute, computer vision and robotics, are ushering in a new era of farm management. Moving from making broad decisions for an entire field to eventually precise plant level management. Today, we are closer than ever to making it a reality that every year, farmers can individually treat each of the 3 trillion corn plants grown in the U.S. and today, taking that concept straight to reality, John Deere is revealing a new sensor and robotic technology to help farmers fertilize the plants as they put them in the ground. You see, plants rely on fertilizer just like you and I rely on food. Without it, plants wouldn't have the proper nutrition to produce the crops we rely on. Previously, I told you about the first critical job of producing a healthy, abundant crop. Placing the seeds into the soil exactly where the need to go. That is just part of what farmers do during planting. We all learned in biology class that seeds need adequate air, water and warmth to sprout and grow into plants. And it's no surprise that Mother Nature will rarely provide the perfect growing conditions that each seed needs. So to help seeds quickly emerge out of the ground as plants, they need a jolt just like I need a coffee in the morning. That is where starter fertilizer comes in. Many farmers apply starter fertilizer while planting. Today, based on technology available to them, they spray the fertilizer continuously down each row of seeds, even though only the seed needs the jolt. As of today, this is going to change. John Deere's new exact shot technology allows farmers to apply starter fertilizer precisely at scale, with speeds up to 10 miles per hour and only where the seeds are planted. This reduces the amount of starter fertilizer farmers need by more than 60% while still allowing them to maintain the speeds they need to get the job done on time. Let's go through how this technology works. Today, A planter with 24 robots can plant 720 seeds of corn per second. The system moves through the field at twice the speed of legacy planters. And given the challenges of weather and labor, this is huge. On a good day, this single machine will plant 34 million corn seeds at precise placement and depth. While a farmer is planting seeds, a sensor will register when each individual seed is going into the ground. And the robotics will spray only the amount of fertilizer needed, about 2/10 of a milliliter, directly onto the seed at the exact moment it goes into the soil. The speed, synchronization and precision at which this is happening in the field was pretty previously unthinkable. The combination of sensors and robotics delivers a massive cost savings to the farmer and a significant benefit to the environment. Because in the process of growing corn today, fertilizer accounts for a large portion of total greenhouse gas emissions. That means exactshot can have an immediate, measurable impact on our environment today. And that video is in slow motion now. Let's speed it up a little. And that's not even full speed. For those of you here at ces, visit our booth in west hall and you can see this technology in real time with your own eyes. This is the real purpose of our technology, to help farmers grow more with less through precision and data driven decisions, while ensuring the land is cared for for the next year and the next generation. And we have many, many more examples of how our technology accelerates the work farmers are doing.
