The new 5M series Masseys made their North American public debut. These utility-class models offer 105- to 145-horsepower diesels connected to the brand’s 12 x 12 Dyna-4 transmission. The transmissions include a brake-to-neutral feature, simplifying loader and baling operations. A mechanical joystick includes a third-function button for controlling loader attachments.

Agco has given these tractors features intended to appeal to livestock producers and hay and forage growers as well as municipal operators.

The tractors can be ordered with or without a cab — which makes them a little unique, because most new utility tractor announcements these days seem to include cab-only versions. For those who choose a cab, the 5M models offer upgraded HVAC capabilities, and air-suspended seat and high visibility roof.

In April the 5M models won a Red Dot Award for product design because of their focus on ergonomic design and functional operator station.

The four 5M models are built on two separate chassis, with the largest two, the 135- and 145-horsepower models, getting a larger frame capable of 11,500 lb. (5,216 kg) of three-point hitch lift capacity.

The 5M engines use a “simplified” Stage V emissions system to meet exhaust restrictions, so owners will have to feed them DEF as well as fuel. To keep those engines running longer hours, the tractors get a larger 52-gallon fuel tank.

The tractors are ISOBUS light and auto-guide ready and are compatible with Massey’s TaskDoc telematics system for data collection in the field.

Fendt 1000 series

At the high end of the horsepower spectrum, Agco announced the release of the Gen4 Vario versions of its flagship rigid-frame Fendt 1000 series tractors.

The updated line will include four models offering 426 to 550 horsepower, and they all get that muscle from a 12.4-litre MAN engine, which uses the Fendt iD low-r.p.m., high-torque concept. All that power flows through the brand’s Vario CVT transmission.

One of the most unique features of these updated models is compatibility with the PTx OutRun autonomous grain cart and tillage system. The 1000 Gen4 Series can have the PTx OutRun capability optionally unlocked from the factory for eventual automated grain cart and tillage operations.

The OutRun autonomous grain cart system is currently operating in limited release on a select number of farms. It was initially launched compatible only with the John Deere 8R models, even though it’s a PTx Trimble-Agco development. The 1000 Series will be the first Agco tractor to use it.

“We’re preparing customers for the future with the first Fendt tractor that can support autonomous operation through PTx OutRun,” Fendt senior marketing manager David Soliday says.

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The app allows a farm manager to go back over information that was collected during field passes, analyzing and comparing it to later yield or scouting information — “so there are multiple facets of Panorama’s functionality,” says Matthew Nelson, software engineering lead at PTx, the smart-farming and autonomy arm of Agco.

“One is agronomic insights, which is really driving the ability to take that full data set that your equipment was already measuring and that you saw in the cab, but optimizing it for after-the-fact analysis.”

That analysis provides the ability to look at individual inputs and changes in application rates or methods in isolation, to help determine their overall impact on yield or other in-field results.

“Say you’re curious about the impact of one variable on a specific outcome,” he says. “We want to make it easy to just add a quick filter and see how yield changes when you look at that variable.”

Panorama offers different “filters” that allow a user to isolate differences in a variety of seeding or application passes and measure how that has affected conditions in the field or the crop’s yield.

It also supports connection to the John Deere Operations Centre and Climate FieldView.

“One thing that we’ve been working on is a way to create filters,” Nelson adds.

“Let’s say I want to know my yield by my (planting) population, but I only want to know that when I’m looking at yield by hybrid and I only want to know that when I’m looking at a particular population range.

“So you can just set 30,000 and 35,000 population range and that will filter out all of the field that doesn’t match that criteria. We’re adding the ability to, for example, pick a row and say ‘What was the yield by hybrid?’ or ‘What was the yield by population for this row?’”

Panorama can also be paired with Precision Planting’s SymphonyVision system, in which cameras can be mounted on a spray boom to take images on site that can later be used for scouting a field without leaving the farm office.

“When you finish a spray pass with SymphonyVision, Panorama lets you take a look at both randomly-situated photos from across the field as a sample, just to get a baseline of what’s going on — but it also is triggering on particular thresholds. If it notices a problem like a particularly high weed severity, you can look at it right there, zoom in on the exact plant that was your concern before you’ve even left your shop, and then later on you can follow up.”

A feature that will soon be added to Panorama is the ability to send changes to a machine setting to the field, where they can quickly be downloaded by an operator.

“We’re going to start down a path of letting the user configure their machine from Panorama,” Nelson says. “That means, before heading out to the field, operators can remotely set up prescriptions and boundaries, reducing setup time and ensuring everything is ready to go.

“At the same time, dealers and owners can use remote diagnostics to quickly identify issues, so if something isn’t right, they can help get things back on track faster.”

Panorama is available on a subscription basis for US$500 per year. There are no per-acre charges, and multiple people in an operation can have access to it under one subscription.

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A green-on-brown system, however, could offer significant reductions in herbicide use during pre-seeding and post-harvest burndowns.

PTx Trimble’s WeedSeeker 2 system offers that capability and is retrofittable to most existing sprayers.

“We’re not limited from a compatibility perspective to make, model or brand, as it’s a component that can work with any sprayer that’s out there,” says Justin Prickel, the product team manager for application controls at PTx Trimble.

“This solution can be added to an existing sprayer with a display in it. If that display is ISOBUS compatible, it will load up on there and provide the whole user interface. That’s where the technology communicates from a retrofit perspective. The WeedSeeker is fully ISOBUS compatible.”

If there isn’t a compatible monitor in the sprayer, it would require installation of a PTx Trimble GFX1260 or 1060 monitor.

READ MORE: Study shows effectiveness of green-on-brown sprayer technology

The retrofit involves mounting a WeedSeeker 2 sensor in front of each nozzle along the sprayer boom, which is usually about every 20 inches. The sensor controls the nozzle behind it and turns it on and off when a weed is detected. The nozzle can be activated within five milliseconds. That permits field travel speeds of up to 25 m.p.h. (40 km/h).

“Each sensor runs autonomously,” Prickel says. “The calibration is stored in the sensor, all the decision-making is in each individual sensor itself, when it comes to seeing a weed or not. That’s where we get the speed and accuracy.”

Each sensor has its own light source, so it can run day and night as well as in dusty conditions, using red and near-infrared lighting. That gives the system an advantage over some other camera systems. All the necessary peripherals, wiring and installation instructions are included with the system.

PTx Trimble offers top-, front- or bottom-mount generic mounting brackets to place the sensors in a location on the boom that will prevent them from being damaged when the boom is folded up.

A single WeedSeeker 2 system can handle up to 96 sensors. A typical 120-foot boom would only need 72. There is also a smaller system package available that maxes out at 18 sensors. It uses a lighter wiring harness, because less power is required to operate the smaller number of sensors. They’re meant for small units, such as something attached to a UTV.

One downside of the system is it adds extra weight to the boom, for which some sprayer models may not be adequately designed.

“So you need to understand the weight you’re adding to existing booms,” Prickel says. “There are some cases where you need to change out your lift cylinders. Smaller, older units don’t have the hydraulic capacity to handle the added weight.”

Also, he recommends removing the sensors when doing in-crop spraying during the season to protect them until they are needed again.

“You don’t want expensive sensors riding on the boom when they’re not being used for half the season, or whatever the case may be.”

Although PTx Trimble doesn’t offer quick-detach connections, Prickel says some of the brand’s dealers have designed their own, which allow the sensors to be removed in sections rather than individually.

“Essentially this solution is a component to add on to an existing sprayer,” he says. “So it’s not a rate control solution. It takes that sprayer from section control to real-time turning that nozzle on and off.”

The system will record some information on a field map to give a grower an overall picture of the locations and amount of weed pressure in a field.

“Through Task Controller, depending on the display, it does log an ISO XML map,” he says. “It is more what we call a weed density map. Depending on how it’s set up, section-wise, within each section you might have eight or 10 sensors. The way Task Controllers are monitoring today is a percentage of the section that’s on or off at any given time. It’s making an as-applied map while doing a spot spray. It’s not controlling the rate, it’s a weed density coverage map.”

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WM-FieldForm is capable of controlling a single scraper to shape field surfaces. It is the first water management system from the brand to be based on the Precision-IQ field application software used in its GFX-1260 and 1060 displays. It allows for improved visualization and faster auto-design features, the company says.

“We started our ‘farmer first’ with a single scraper,” says Scott Azbell, worldwide water sales manager at PTx Trimble. “Our next phase will be sub-surface drainage. Then we’ll come back in and go after the contractors with dual and tandem scrapers. Two scrapers hooked front to back or side to side.”

Farmers can use WM-FieldForm to create topographic surveys of fields, using RTK measurements with boundaries, interior points and calculations to report true acreage, using tools such as PTx Trimble’s WM-Survey II app.

Survey data can then be imported into WM-Form design software to create field surface drainage plans using Multiplane technology to define primary and cross slopes, orientation and preferred grades for more complex field requirements.

An RTK guidance system is necessary for WM-FieldForm to work.

“There are a bunch of different signals out there, but RTK is the only one that has vertical accuracy,” says Azbell. “We need the vertical accuracy to be within two centimetres.”

The system allows farmers to do all of the work necessary to carry out a drainage operation from start to finish. That includes creating a drainage plan — and getting the tractor and scraper to actually carry out that plan.

“We’ve been testing this for about five months now, making sure we got all the bugs out before we actually released it,” Azbell adds. “It’s very intuitive. The guys that were doing beta and alpha testing walked right through it.

“It does complicated work, but it’s simple to use.”

WM-FieldForm requires PTx Trimble’s newest GFX1260 or 1060 monitor to work. The system won’t work on older monitors due to the brand’s change in software format a few years ago.

“The displays today are Android-based, the others were not,” Azbell says. “You can use Android apps with the Survey II as a way to get your own (topographical) mapping. So we can use that on this display.”

Aside from the monitor and receiver on the tractor, the system relies on a receiver on the scraper as well.

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Agco has acquired an 85 per cent share in the j.v., while Trimble retains a 15 per cent interest. Also falling under the PTx brand will be Agco’s JCA Technologies and Precision Planting businesses. The new company will become a key part of Agco’s product portfolio.

“PTx now makes its way as one of Agco’s five core brands,” PTx Trimble general manager Andrew Sunderman says. “PTx is our technology portion of the business, which consists of two go-to-market brands: PTx Trimble, which is our joint venture between Agco and Trimble, as well as our second go-to-market brand, Precision Planting.”

Any new digital products developed by Agco going forward will also become part of the PTx portfolio.

“We thought it was important to have a strong identity in the market for this new company that solidifies our focus on precision agriculture, cutting edge technologies,” he added. “And that ‘x’ (in the name) signifies the multiplication effect of bringing these two companies together.”

PTx Trimble products will continue to be sold and supported through Trimble’s existing network of dealers — but qualified Fendt, Massey Ferguson and Valtra dealers will have the opportunity to begin to sell them as well. The company will start to bring those dealers onboard as PTx retailers, in much the same way it added Fendt to Agco’s equipment line.

“It’s 100 per cent a very similar approach,” Sunderman says. “Where there are capable Fendt, Massey Ferguson, Valtra and Precision Planting dealers around the world that do not overlap with our existing PTx Trimble dealers, we’ll be working with those that are interested and capable to bring them on as PTx Trimble dealers to sell and support PTx Trimble products.”

Agco’s own in-house digital systems that have so far been offered from the factory in Fendt and Massey Ferguson equipment will continue to be offered for the foreseeable future — but expect the PTx Trimble system to be gradually integrated into Agco equipment as an OEM feature.

“As we go forward, our teams are looking at how do we take the best of both of these, bringing them together, and have a solution that allows our customers to connect their in-cab experience with their back-office solutions,” Sunderman says.

Aside from the fact that products in the PTx portfolio are already being used as original equipment by dozens of OEMs, a key feature of PTx Trimble systems will be they can be installed on any brand of machine, including older equipment. That will allow farms with multi-coloured fleets to integrate all of their machine operations seamlessly into one network.

“That allows customers to connect their machines of any make and any vintage into one common off-board platform,” he adds.

“I think in order to be the trusted partner in the industry, you need to be able to serve all farmers. In doing so we take an approach that allows our technology products (to) work for any brand, and going back many years often times. So customers don’t have to trade out their piece of equipment or buy new just to get the latest in technology.”

That said, technology is “becoming a large part of customer buying decisions,” Sunderman says. “At PTx Trimble our vision is to be the industry leader for mixed fleet smart farming and autonomy solutions, really working to serve all farmers with all makes and all vintages specifically with precision ag technologies and really leading in autonomous solutions.”

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