John Deere announced a series of upgrades and updates Thursday that fall in line with the company's increasing focus on precision ag and autonomy.

In 2014, the Hale Group conducted research for Iowa, including a lot of information on row-crop agriculture. In a survey of 400 Iowa farmers, one question stood out to dealers: Who do you go to when you want to learn about new products and services?

Rapp Farms, operated by James and his sons Nick, and Ben, farm 3,000 acres of corn and soybeans in the Princeton, Ill., area. They are going into their fifth year of strip-tilling both crops on fairly flat and rather consistent soil types in the north-central part of the state.

The GNSS sensor is protected against weather, moisture, vibration, dust, water immersion and EMI exposure typical of long-duration, harsh outdoor deployments.

Real-Time Kinematics (RTK) provides the best position accuracy for precision agricultural guidance systems.

As I was driving back and forth between our office and warehouse a couple of weeks ago, there was a survey crew working along the highway. They had their RTK antenna in one hand, and their data logger in the other. And for the next few days, they continued to work on this stretch of highway doing a survey of elevation. And it got me to thinking about how all of us adopt technology, and specifically how quickly we do it.

As we are in the midst of putting our crop in this year, there are a few things that some of us take for granted. One of those is straight rows, which most any system can deliver.