Autonomous Grain Cart in an Ohio Corn Field

[@MustangsTrainsMowers]

If only it could drive through the Wendy’s drive through to get me a grilled chicken sandwich.

[@jaybee2344]

There are many food delivery services

[@John-kr7iz]

give it time lol!

[@kristianhart1451]

Very interesting

[@ezrasmith3893]

What would be cool is if a semi pulled into a set location that the tractor knew was safe and unloaded by itself with a set rpm and a set time programmed by a human before it does it automatically. Perfectly loaded trucks every time

[@AgiDaKinG]

Course play in real life lol pretty cool

[@claesmansson9070]

Chiselplowing or plowing or sowing two tractors driving same time could be saving time and empl.

[@jracer77]

Guys like me, solo farmer!

[@giltk8258]

The costs for this option costs big money.

[@garyreid7865]

space age farning

[@jimjonrs3932]

If we are successful we can autonomize humans right out of life!

[@glennspreeman1634]

just the beginning of many applications.

[@johnallen5996]

Wow. Just seems like a ton of money to not dump directly into trucks. I mean add it up,,,R series JD, dump cart, operator or autonomous outfit, interest, fuel, maintance,,,,

[@The_JEB]

The target market for this product likely already has the equipment

[@johnallen5996]

@@The_JEB I wasn’t singling out the autonomous technology but the fleet of equipment the Farmer uses to not dump the combine directly in the truck as a whole.

[@The_JEB]

@@johnallen5996 its far more efficient for a grain cart to shuttle product back and forth between the combine and the trucks than it is to have the combine go to the trucks. Especially if the trucks have a long round trip, the grain cart can hold a lot more grain so the combine has less down time when harvesting.

[@johnallen5996]

@@The_JEB more efficient or easier? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing as I am surrounded by large farmers but I can’t believe the cost of all that equipment including interest maintenance and fuel is always more efficient

[@The_JEB]

@@johnallen5996 less time they spend in the field harvesting the sooner they can sell their product and plant the next round of crops. Most large farmers plant two crops.

[@anthonyklein2944]

Who pays their grain cart operators 25K per year on 1800 acres, sign me up baby?!? ROI is NOT 2 years. Don't forget this thing will need maintenance, and software updates, etc., all costing money. Depending on many factors, 1800 acres should come out in about 15-25 days, at 12-14 hour days; a $15.00/hr contract employee will only cost you between $2,700.00 to $5,250.00 I do think this technology will ultimately be standard on the farming landscape someday. I hazard a guess that we are still quite a few years away from it being commonplace, especially at sub $4.00 corn in most recent years, and likely again next year.

[@The_JEB]

Whats not being taken into consideration is finding someone willing to do the job for that pay, and then also having to rely on that person to show up. The cost of down time due to unreliable people would be a factor that should be considered. Also if they are able to expand the capabilities you could have mutiple systems and then have one run a cart, one plow/chisel/disk a field thats been harvest already. On top of all that ypu could run it 24/7 with no need to breaks or sleep.

[@anthonyklein2944]

@@The_JEB I agree with your statement about considering the cost of finding and retaining reliable people. Don't hear the following wrong, I am in agreement with you, but what I am about to say is aimed at hopefully offering another perspective on the same information. Generally I haven't seen a shortage of decent quality labor actually be a factor for the average farmer, maybe the larger corporate farms and the custom farmers sure, or maybe since I am not as close to the farming world as I once was, I am out of touch with the recent realities. There are incalculable costs to the autonomous system, as well, such as breakdowns, going off course and causing physical damage, or just loss of crop damage, accelerated "new toy" depreciation, etc, none of these costs both you or I know are real can be quantified until they happen, so you really cannot "compare" them. That doesn't make it any less of a cost, it just cannot be reliably projected and therefore calculated into the return on investment. Something else that drives the "can't find," or "they are unreliable" people problem is the following, and please understand I am not assuming you or anyone else IS this type of person or not, but there is another explanation. Quality people cost quality money. I am not suggesting the farmer doesn't want to pay more, but in many cases the pay isn't going to attract a reliable person, or put another way, the pay offered won't bring in enough candidates for the farmer to have anyone to pick from. The bottom line is there is a market value for quality people, and some farmers either cannot or will not pay that price. Just like investing in a piece of technology, paying a higher labor rate is an investment in a quality operator, now we all know there can be duds to look great on paper, but that applies to technology as well. There are also other factors, like maybe the farmer is arrogant, and has a bad reputation as a boss, or maybe the farmer doesn't plan far enough ahead, and there is nobody left, etc. Unfortunately farming to support a family MUST still be a business first IF you want to make money or just survive on farming alone, if not you are just hobby farming, and you have to have an outside cash flow. Finding qualified people means you have to know the "people market," just as well as the grain market, IF your operation DEPENDS on people to be profitable. So many people grew up farming, or love farming, but don't have the business savvy to make it profitable, or just break even, others can be faced with the same situation and due to smart decisions turn a challenge into staying alive for the next year or actually post a profit. Don't hear me wrong, there are so many challenges that face a farmer that they have absolutely ZERO control over, but that is true of every profession. Sorry I really didn't mean for that to turn into a lecture, nor do I suggest you don't know most of that already!

[@The_JEB]

@@anthonyklein2944 I agree with everything you said. I think the autonomous systems will become cheaper over time as first time products are usually far more expensive and will be more economically viable the more features they can add, such as tillage, seeding, etc. If they are able to get the price down to say $30,000 and have all those features the farmer will end up having a positive ROI far sooner than if he/she were to adopt this stuff now. Especially if you consider hiring one person to run the grain cart, If they work 12 hours a day they will be making $180 a day (before taxes) or $900 a week. If harvest lasts say 12 weeks then the farmer will have to pay them $10,800, if he has the autonomous system for just the grain cart at the current price there is a 5 year ROI ish, now if that system can be used for other things like I mentioned above the ROI will be a lot sooner.

[@jaybee2344]

$50k isn't bad. When you figure out employee pay

[@MustangsTrainsMowers]

Next the autonomous dairy farmer for milking cows. That was one thing I definitely didn’t like doing as I much preferred driving something.

[@michaelthayer643]

There is one near Bowling Green, KY. It's amazing . It feeds, washes, and .looks them with no person anywhere near. Plus they have great ice cream.

[@michaelthayer643]

Milk's them! Spell check er strikes again.

[@ryanjanzen5194]

oh man! our dairy farm has 3 automatic milkers! kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5S6mnimZpWlq6M&ab_channel=Lely if your intersted

[@jono1941]

5

[@MrTonyharrell]

Just put a bunch of 12 year old boys out of a job.