John Deere announces Furrow Vision for measuring seed depth

The upgrade puts a camera on the planter row unit, looking directly down into the furrow as farmers are planting, providing real-time visuals on the farmer’s in-cab display. The system combines the camera view, and information from lasers measuring seed depth, to produce digestible data on the display.

What’s going on in the furrow

“Most customers have to get out, dig, check in-field to understand what’s going on in the furrow”, says Kevin Juhl, product line marketing manager for John Deere in the magazine Successful farming. “What this does is it checks every seed and in row, to tell you what’s going on.”

The system places a camera across each section of the planter, one on the left, right, and center wing, regardless of size — a 12-, 16-, or 24-row planter will have three total cameras.

As farmers are moving through the field, they will be able to pause the video and rewind where needed to evaluate seed-to-soil contact while planting.

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Availability

Furrow Vision will be first available as a performance upgrade to existing planters, with specific model-compatibility and system requirements still in development. The system has been in testing for a few years, and John Deere will announce availability as soon as they are confident in the system and supply availability, according to Juhl.