AGCO has been busy highlighting its plans for future technology and alternative fuels with two demonstrations in the US where the company showed off its latest projects and explained its strategy.
The application of digital technology to the farming cycle was one area where the corporation is striking out in its own direction while it will have clean energy solutions available by 2024.
Retrofitting future technology
While John Deere is heavily promoting a fully integrated John Deere solution to a farming operation, AGCO is setting a different course in offering its own suite of digital offerings to fit a multitude of machines.
Being highlighted at the events was the latest spot-spraying system developed by its in-house division (known as Precision Planting) which operates through the use stereo cameras to identify weeds.
What’s more is that it is not just targeting new machinery; older equipment can also benefit as all the products are designed to be retrofitted, should the implement be capable of accepting it.
This, as the company points out, gives AGCO access to a huge variety of machines to which it can attach its products, rather than just those sold in its own liveries.
Autonomous machinery is also at the forefront of AGCO’s plans for future technology as it intends to automate every part of the growing cycle of sowing to harvesting. This might well be possible in the US for now, but here in Europe there are greater legislative hurdles to its adoption.
New engine is major clue
If AGCO made it quite clear where it stands on future technology, its chosen path with regards to alternative fuels was less well illuminated with the only definite reference being to the 70hp electric tractor from Fendt.
However, AGCO’s CEO, Eric Hansotia, did pledge to have alternatives available by 2024, which did little to clarify the situation. However, there might be further light coming from the European end of the corporations reach.
This September, Valtra is holding a launch day over in Finland at its Soulahti tractor plant with only the vaguest hints being given as to what to expect.
Yet, what is perhaps the biggest news to come out of Finland over the last few years is the investment that AGCO Power has made in its engine factory at Linnavuori, which lies just outside of Nokia.
A billion Euros has been spent in not just revamping the factory, but also in developing the latest CORE engine family which is designed from the outset to run on a variety of fuels.
Valtra and MF to get CORE?
So far the only tractors to be fitted with it belong to the latest Fendt 700 machines which, although they might be a fine set of machines, are hardly worth spending that sort of money on alone.
It is probably safe to assume that we will be hearing about the CORE engine being used in the Valtra range, and this might involve a wholesale revamp of the portfolio as utilising a completely new engine is a big deal, and AGCO is likely to want to introduce some new tractors to go with it.
Certainly, the S series is likely to feature as this is still at Generation 4 whereas all the other ranges are at Generation 5. It is still made in Beauvais, but further investment in the paint shop and logistics warehouse at Soulahti opens up the possibility that the production of it, or its replacement, might be moving north.
All this is just a guesselectrid based on what is known, yet bringing the multifuel CORE engine onto the market next year will go someway to fulfilling Eric Hansotia’s promise to having an alternative power unit available in 2024.
