What We’ve Learned After Two Years of John Deere Autonomous Tillage

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Tony Kramer: Hi, I'm Tony Kramer, your host of the Agriculture Technology Podcast. And I'm sitting down with agriculture technology and equipment experts to help you enhance your operation for today, tomorrow, and into the future. In this episode, I talk with Tyler Zima about the John Deere Autonomous Tillage Solution.

Very excited to welcome back to the show Tyler Zima. So this is actually your second time on the show. We recorded an episode not long back out in the field, actually, at one of our field days. So why don't you just reintroduce yourself, tell our listeners again a little bit about who you are, where you come from, and how you got to where you are today?

Tyler Zima: Yeah, so good afternoon, Tyler Zima. I've been with RDO now for two years, and it was kind of fun. My first day on the job, I got to go to an autonomous tillage meeting with John Deere, and here we are two years later, four seasons later, now running seven tractors. And it's just been a fun ride to just work with the customers and help John Deere along with this autonomous solution that they're offering.

Tony: Yeah, absolutely. So product manager of the tillage and autonomy kind of world within RDO. So you got to work, like you said, very closely with the autonomous tillage. And we'll talk a little bit about our experiences with RDO and the customers that we've worked with on autonomous tillage. But before we do that, I want to talk a little bit about what is autonomous tillage? What tractors are capable of being autonomous? What tillage tools out there can we hook up to those autonomous tractors? Because that's one of the things I think is unique about this is it's not the tillage that's, it's actually the tractor that is doing the autonomy, and you're hooking up to that tillage tool. So start out just explaining a little bit some of the compatibilities with the tractor, the tillage tools and the technology that we need in order to get to that autonomous stage.

Tyler: Sure, so from a compatibility standpoint, a lot of our growers or farmers have the solutions on their farm today. It's not some whiz-bang tractor without a cab. So it's your 8R, 8RX model, your 20.5 and newer, and then you get to your 9R, 9RX model 2022 and newer. So that's what you need from a tractor standpoint.

So from a tillage compatibility standpoint, it's green on green today. So if you have an offline or shortline branded tillage tool, it's not going to work with autonomy. But if you have a John Deere tillage tool, you got your 2230s, your 2430s, you've got the vertical tillage 2660, and you have the 2880H and the high-speed disc as well, the newer version of that. And then you got your Coulter chisel. So those are the five that are compatible today. Deere is hoping to get their entire portfolio out by the end of 2027. And again, most of that is, all that's going to be a PUK upgrade. So most, we're going to go back to maybe model year 17, some as early as model year 23 is about the latest year you're going to get on those. But that's what you're going to look at from an implement breakdown. When you get to technology, they're both going to be PUKs, so again, we're upgrading the machines, we're upgrading the tillage tool. You're going to get, you need Gen 5 display or your G5, and that really is just coming down to what the platform is moving in all production steps with the Gen 5 platform. You're going to have integrated 7500s, the tool's going to need a universal 7500, and then you're going to have Starlink as well as something that's coming included if you don't have access to like a Wi-Fi network so you can, hey, I can access anywhere where I don't have service as well.

Tony: So you made a comment about all of the different PUK upgrades or precision upgrade capable. So we can take tractors and certain tillage tools that we have on our farm today and turn them into an autonomous tillage solution. I don't have to go out and buy brand new equipment to do this.

Tyler: Correct. So if you have, like I said, you know, an older model year 20 on 20 and a half on 8R, 8RX, that is upgradable. Model year 22 on 9R, 9RX, in forward that is upgradable. There is a difference or a level of what it entails to install that PUK, the older you get, obviously the more labor intensive it gets to install that PUK for various reasons. When you get to model year 25 on a tractor now, you're going to have autonomy ready from the factory. Autonomy ready doesn't mean it comes with a perception system, but once you get to model year 25, that's all you're installing. The perception system, which is the camera, 16 cameras that outline the roof line of the machine so it can see 360 degrees around it for any objects that it may need to identify and potentially stop for so you don't ruin anything on the machine. And then there's the VPUs, which is also part of the perception system. That's the visual processing units. And those are just processing the images that are coming through the tractor so it can make decisions.

Tony: Now, we kind of know you gave us a rundown of what we need, the machines and implements that are compatible. Now, I'm curious, how in the world do I run this thing? Does it come with an RC control, remote control, like I had back in the day as a kid with my monster trucks? Or what are we doing to be able to operate this machine in the field? What's all needed?

Tyler: So you have two selections, whether you're a PlayStation kid or an Xbox kid growing up. No, actually, everything is ran off of Ops Center Mobile. So as long as you have a mobile device or a tablet, you can run or download Ops Center Mobile and run it through your phone. So you do have to do a few things in the cab. One of them, maybe you want to send a work plan or set up your work. You have to set up your turn automation or ATTA, and then you have to set up section control. So you set those up in the cab. At that time, you can go into autonomy, select where you'd like the machine to start in the field, and then either exit cab or ride along autonomy. Most scenarios, you're going to exit the cab. Once you get out of the cab, You then grab your mobile device or your tablet, and once you get about 150 feet away from that machine, it's going to light up and say, would you like to start autonomy? You hit yes. It gives you a warning code that you are now going to be entering autonomy. You swipe right, and the machine will then go through a warning sequence. A few honks and beeps, the flashers go off, and then it starts on the path that you selected or generated through Autopath Pro.

Tony: I'm glad that there's options there because I was a Nintendo kid growing up. I wasn't PlayStation or Xbox. But no, so what you're saying there is the Operations Center and the Operations Center mobile are two very key components to this whole system working, correct?

Tyler: Absolutely. Yeah. I think, you know, when we look at even the customer base, you know, we talked about the machines or the tools that they might already have. Well, hey, you're a step closer to autonomy. Are you using technology? Are you using section control? Are you using auto track turn automation? Are you using things like machine sync? You already are adopting technology, and we know that you're interested in newer technologies makes you a good fit. Are you using Operations Center? Are you using it to analyze machines, monitor machines? And then again, that next step into Ops Center mobile. So if you start doing those things, all of that makes you look like a good candidate, or at least you're in the right direction for maybe autonomy working on your farm.

Tony: And we actually talked about that in a previous episode about the path to autonomy and making sure you're setting yourself up. If autonomy is something that you want to get your operation to, doing exactly what you just said, adopting some of those features, adopting some of that technology today, so that when it comes time to purchase that unit or these upgrade kits for the tractor and the tillage tool, you're already most of the way there aside from that technology. And that brings me to my next thing about purchasing, what are the opportunities for purchasing this solution today?

Tyler: So actually, John Deere did open orders for this as of November 3rd. So there's 47 states that you can order autonomous tillage from John Deere, and that's going to exclude Hawaii, Alaska, and California. California is the only one who has a law against not having an operator in a farm vehicle. So that's why they're excluded at this point. I'm sure something may change down the road, but the other 47 states, you are able to order this as of right now. So you can go to your local RDO dealer and ask about autonomous tillage, what's your path to autonomous tillage? And how do I, you know, understand more about it and just what does it look like for me to even get into it?

Tony: You bring up some of those regulations in the state of California specifically without having an operator in the cab of the machine. Talk a little bit about what this looks like in terms of, I believe the phrase is demotions or what happens when, you know, a person gets in front of the tractor or there's something impassable. How does that whole process look when it comes to an autonomous tillage machine?

Tyler: Sure. So if we go back to Ops Center mobile, there's actually a handful of pretty neat features within it. So once the machine is moving, you can pause the machine whenever you choose to. You can have a go-to point. So maybe you sense your field entrance or your approach as, hey, I want the machine to go here when it's done with the field, or maybe I want it to go here in the next half hour because I'm going to come there to fuel it. So you can set some of that, or a go-to at, I want to stop at the end of the next pass or the end of the following pass. So those things you can kind of control so the machine isn't stopped out in the middle of the field. But when you get to a demotion state, demotion is the machine stops for some reason. One of those reasons could be very small, like dust. It would stop for the dust. Once the dust clears, the machine would start itself back up without any operator input. Same thing, it does detect water, which is a good thing, so it doesn't drive through a swamp. If it detects water, it will stop for that too. Depending on the size of it, it might try to work around that puddle of water or pond. And then you get to things like objects that you mentioned. If it's an impassable object, the machine is going to stop for that. It will send a series of five pictures to Blue River, which is a company that is on the backside right now monitoring these machines, and they give the go ahead on what the next step is. So is that a route around, or do we have to stop the machine in its operator intervention? A lot of times it's going to do a route around, which means it routes around the object and grabs the line on the other side and continues operation. And then the third event is going to be either a human element or like a vehicle. If it encounters either one of those, the machine is going to stop, go into a demotion autonomy and it's going to require an operator to come back to the field. But again, if it's dust, an object that you can route around, you can do that from anywhere. You don't need to be close to the machine, you could be 400 miles away, and it's going to route around that object and no need for you to go back to the field.

Tony: So the way I understand, there's kind of three different levels of demotions. It's almost, it'll resume autonomy on its own. You have to, as the owner, operator, farmer, you have to tell it what to do on your mobile device, or in the instance of a vehicle or a human, a person, you would have to go back to the machine to restart it in autonomy.

Tyler: And I guess maybe another thing just to add to that is you get an alert on your phone or your tablet. So it's not like you have to be checking on your phone to make sure it's stopped. You're going to get an alert that, hey, the machine has encountered an object or a person walked out on the field, and you'll get that image. But again, you're not going to just not know it for a half hour that the machine's sitting out there waiting for you to make a decision. It's going to automatically give you an alert.

Tony: And you bring up a good point there where you don't have to sit and monitor. I mean, if we're just going to be sitting and staring at our tablets or our phone the whole time, well, now we may as well just be in the tractor. So being able to step away or trust the system and allow it to go, that's a key part to this whole autonomy being successful for each operation.

Tyler: Absolutely. I mean, that's the whole point of autonomy. If I'm not in the cab, what else am I doing? Am I tendering the cedar in another field? Did I run back to the garage to help fix something? Was I able to unload a couple of trucks or move a guy to another field? Whatever it is, it's adding value. The goal is, yeah, you're not sitting at the edge of the field looking at your phone because your point is, I might as well be sitting. So what other valued task are you doing? Or is it, hey, I got the tillage guy out of this tractor now. Can I elevate him to a higher task or he can learn something else? Maybe I get him in the planter. So again, or the ability to maybe be at two places at one time.

Tony: I want to circle back to that, being able to do other things, other tasks. But before we get there, let's talk a little bit now. So we, as RDO, we've got to work with customers for two years now, multiple seasons, two years, two calendar years. Let's talk a little bit about some of the things, the number of units, the seasons of use, some of the acres we covered, and then what are some of the things that we found very successful with autonomous tillage? But then what were some of the things that we learned? Were some hoops that needed to be jumped through or maybe a hurdle we encountered? Let's talk a little bit about our first-hand experience with autonomous tillage.

Tyler: Yeah, so I think #1, it's come a long ways. As Tony mentioned, we’re two years in, so 4 tillage seasons. Last year, ‘24, it was all Deer Pilot units. So the customer signed up and just a tractor tillage tool, they had to put acres on it. This year now in ‘25, we've gotten a customer unit. So we found customers that were interested in autonomy and willing to put the PUK on their machine to try and demo this and get acres on it, also on their tillage tool. And that is how we ran in 2025. We had four customers this spring, then we added another 3 customers this fall, so a total of 7 running this fall. The highlights, I mean, if you look, we ended up covering 13,000 acres this year autonomously, which was a really big win. Again, getting 7 autonomous customers signed up to run this, all of that, I mean, was a huge success. But if you would rewind to 2024, I would have never told you we'd had seven guys signed up for this year. The machine uptime was very low. It stopped for a lot of different things that maybe we thought it shouldn't, but that all was part of the learning process to get to where we are now. And the exponential growth that happened in just from ‘24 spring to fall of ‘25, I mean, if we can see that again next year, I mean, it's just going to continue to improve and the satisfaction of the customers is going to continue to improve as well.

Tony: And I know one of the things that John Deere continues to say about these advanced technologies that's coming out, the autonomous tillage, the See & Spray, things like that, is the way it operates today is the worst it's going to operate in the time you own it because it's going to continue to learn and it's going to continue to get better. And we've experienced that with the two years of autonomous tillage, and what we've done with the customers, and how the system has changed. What were some of the biggest learning opportunities or some of the things that we really had to say, okay, this is a key factor in autonomous tillage. We just need to know this going forward.

Tyler: I think probably how we mapped the boundaries was a big one. So again, if we go back to boundaries, boundaries have to be driven, whether it be with the tractor, whether it be with the gator, with the 7000 or 7500 Universal. And the reason they're driven is just... GPS accuracy is only so great, or satellite, excuse me, not GPS, is only so accurate. So if we drive it, we know that you didn't run anything over a fence post. So it just gives another level of confidence with that driven boundary. But year one, we made the boundaries as perfect as we could. Well, autonomy wasn't perfect yet. So getting rid of irregular shapes, maybe some of the impassable boundaries, maybe we needed to make them non-passable. And just how do we manage those fields just for autonomy? Right now, autonomy's great in a nice big square field. We know that's not every case. The rule of thumb is if it's like less than four passes, probably just chop that off on the boundary and clean that up when you're doing headlands or whatever, just doing some touch-up in the field. Because again, autonomy's in our own best on a fairly square field. So, boundaries were a big one, and continue to be, and I think, again, those will only continue to get better as well.

Tony: Now, a lot of people, we all, we kind of get this idea in our head of autonomous tillage and who it's for, who it's not for, all of that type of stuff. We've all got our own ideas. I want to talk about some of the questions, the concerns, just the feedback that we receive from both customers interested in autonomous tillage, but then also customers that believe they would never have autonomous tillage on their farm. And the first one that I want to talk about is, you know, autonomous tillage is only for the big guys, or autonomous tillage is only for the little guy that can't find labor. Let's talk a little bit about, from our experience and what we've seen, and some of the wins that both or any size farm can receive from autonomous tillage. So tell us a little bit about that and where we see autonomous tillage fitting in terms of farm size scaling?

Tyler: Sure, yeah, and I would agree with you right away. It's like, oh, you gotta farm 10,000 acres to make autonomous tillage work. I don't believe that’s the case. A lot of times those farms, again, everyone goes to labor right away. If I have autonomous tillage, I didn't get rid of labor or I don't have the labor. So that's where it always goes, but a lot of times those larger farms have the labor. They’re able to keep them on maybe year-round. It's easier to find labor for them. Also depends on where you live. If you're kind of out in the middle of nowhere, maybe labor is very hard, but you only farm 2,000 acres. Well, you could maybe run it all day long, but at the end of the day, if you want to go home at 5, 6 o'clock, maybe you can turn it loose. It runs for another few hours. It is capable of running at night, so it's got the lights on it. Maybe it runs for another 8 hours. Now you're ahead of schedule. So I don't really think autonomous tillage is, I think it's a good and viable option for any size farm. I think It just depends on how you want to use it and maybe how it fits within your farm. And I know you mentioned wins as well, and I think this maybe should have been talked about in the last piece, but the runtime and where we've gone with runtime. This fall, we had roughly 70 days that the seven tractors were all in the field at some point. And almost half of those days we saw with five plus hours of runtime. Now that might not be completely continuous runtime, but then we had a few days that were over 12 hours of runtime, so you're starting to chew up some ground at that point.

Tony: Yeah, and I completely agree with you when you say, autonomous tillage is a great solution for any size farm. It's not just for the big guy, it's not just for the small guy or the farm that's hard to find labor. If you can... pencil it out and it makes sense to add the technology to these machines. One of my favorite stories that you can fill in a little more on is maybe you have enough labor, maybe everything works, but there's certain things you just need to step away from. Maybe it's a doctor's appointment, maybe it's a moving, jockeying some equipment around, but getting away so that tillage can continue to get done, but you can get something else done. And I know one of the customers that we worked with here, I believe in ‘25 or maybe it was the end of ‘24, they were able to step away and get back some family time. Tell us that story.

Tyler: Yeah, so this was their first till of season, it was ‘25 here, and they got the machine running in the field, and he actually went back to do something at the farm. It was close enough by, and he looked at it like an hour, like, it's still running. He goes, I'm going to run into town and go to my daughter's volleyball game. And he was, I checked it every once in a month, he goes, it's still running. And he got home that evening and the tractor had still run for three, four hours. He was able to step away, get something done at home, go to his daughter's volleyball game and come back and the machine was still running. So I mean, I think that's awesome too. You know, we think of labor, we think of short operating windows, we think of everything around the farm. What else can I be getting done when the tractor's running? Well, There's a quality of life piece maybe that gets added back in for certain people around busy times. But hey, I would have never made that volleyball game. I would have been sitting in that tractor because this freed me up for a few hours. And I think there's the other misconception sometimes too with this is, hey, I'm just going to run this all day, every day. Well, you might not need to. You might need to be in the cab for that time. But at some point, you can, hey, I can turn this into autonomy. I can run to your doctor's appointment or I can run and do this quick and come back. And I think that's just, it just gives up some flexibility.

Tony: Yeah, and that's one of the things we were talking about before we recorded here is that, a lot of times where we're at in the upper Midwest, Minnesota, and the Dakotas, sometimes these tillage operators are old retired farmers, retired teachers. It's just somebody in the cab, and maybe they have, you know, this gentleman's agreement with the farm that, hey, I'll come out and run the machine, but it's only going to be from, you know, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Well, you can flip on autonomy, and that tractor can continue to go from... let's say 5 p.m. to even midnight or whatever it may be, getting a couple more hours in is still going to help you. It's going to continue to provide productivity and efficiency to your operation. And again, the family aspect, quality of life, that I love that story that this customer had the opportunity to get into their kid's sporting event, or again, maybe it's a doctor's appointment, dentist's appointment, whatever it may be, you don't have to turn this thing loose and run it 24 hours around the clock. You can utilize the autonomy as you see fit, because of course, there is a technology fee, a license fee, tied to autonomy. Remind us again what that looks like.

Tyler: So initially it was like a $4 acre charge. You want to talk the exact shot, see and spray. It was set up that way. Now what Deere is doing, at least in 2026, they're exploring options, what looks right. This is the first time that they're really going to the masses with this. They're doing an unlimited acre fee. So now you can kind of be in control of how you'd like to scale it.

Tony: Yeah, so that factors in as well on how often you use it, where you use it, when you use it. And circling back to some of the other things you said before, more about fields and four passes or four widths of your tillage tool that might not lend itself to autonomy. That's I think another skewed perception on some people's beliefs on autonomy is that it's just, it's going to work perfectly everywhere all the time. Not every field is suited for autonomy.

Tyler: Yeah, and I would say autonomy just in the state that it is right now, you know, it's just coming out of prototype phase. It's not going to be, Deere still knows that they're working on things and continuing to make it better, but yeah, it's not to your point going to be 100% perfect. It's not going to In every field, it might not work every day, and what I mean by that is, if it's a really dusty spring, dry spring or fall, and it's a really windy day, if those cameras get covered about 70%, the machine's gonna stop and start itself back up, but if the wind's at your back and always in front of you, it starts itself back up, stops after, you know what I mean? Now you're looking at changing your heading. Is that something that you're willing to do? Or, hey, I'm going to run it manually today. But then again, you get to some irregular shaped fields. Maybe there's a lot of potholes. Maybe there's a lot of swamps. You got a bunch of shelter belts. If you can't get away from that machine, and the way I look at it is by at least two hours, does it make a lot of sense to run autonomy? Right now, getting it to maybe drive around the shelter belt to the next chunk of the shelter belt, that's a little bit of a challenge with autonomy. Obviously, again, things John Deere is working on, but kind of got to move it to that next piece. It's not going to just drive through this little narrow area at the end of the field.

Tony: Yeah, and like you said, John Deere's working on it. This is the second year, kind of the first year with customers buying it on their own. Now John Deere has open orders in 47 states. So the system is going to continue to get better as it learns, as Deere understands how it operates and we can continue to adapt and change and make it a better performing system. It's not a bad system by any means. We've seen a lot of success in the time that we've gotten to work with it. There's some learning to do. There's some key components that purchasing customers definitely need to keep in mind, but this is a technology that it is there. You can utilize it.

Tyler: Yeah, and I would say, you know, the growers that we had working with us these past two years have been great, provided awesome feedback to John Deere, some of that as we've seen the changes as we've progressed too. But the more people that we get in using this, whether they're RDO customers or not, the technology is going to progress faster as, hey, more and more feedback consistent feedback. Will these issues rise at the top? Fix them. And also, I think one of the biggest things that come out of, at least the early adopters, like, we know this is the future. We know this is coming for other things. Yes, it's in tillage right now, but we want to get in early. We want to understand how it works, and we want to be on the forefront, so we're ready when it comes down the pipe for everything else.

Tony: Yeah, that's something that I think is really exciting about this is back to kind of what I mentioned at the beginning of the episode here is it's not tied to, yes, right now it's tied to tillage because that was where they started, but the autonomous portion is on the tractor, so once we start to figure out how to automate other implements and other production steps and other tasks in the field, we've already got that tractor solution. It's already been figured out on tillage. So it's very exciting to see this happening, to see where it's going to go, to continue to add more components to tillage. Once we can perfect the tillage, once we can figure out what's going to work, what isn't going to work, then planting or whatever it may be, pull-type sprayers, who knows what that future is going to look like when it comes to autonomy. But to your point and to the customer's point, right now is the time to get in at ground level if autonomy is something that fits your operation. Absolutely.

Tyler: This might be very simple, but we know the tillage tool is so wide, so deep. Again, once they get that completely figured out, and you look at the planter, there's a lot more automation on the planter, there's a lot of row sensing, all that different technology that's on those. As long as it fits in this box, can we make autonomy work? Now, I don't know the answer to that. I'm not the one designing it, but again, we know what's coming.

Tony: Absolutely. Tyler, if people want to learn more about autonomous tillage, the capabilities, the compatibility, if it's a right fit for their farm, where can they go, who can they talk to, learn a little bit more?

Tyler: So selfishly first, I'm gonna say obviously your local RDO dealer. But John Deere's got a lot of good resources out on their website as well. I know we've done some YouTube videos and shot those to just get a little more information out there. But I would say, yeah, John Deere's website, your RDO dealer, that's probably where you're gonna find the most information. There's not a ton of it out there yet, but I mean, from a compatibility standpoint, what you need from technology, that stuff's all pretty readily available. But if you wanna get a little deeper, I would say, yeah, talk to your local dealer.

Tony: Yeah, absolutely. I just want to thank you, Tyler, for taking the time once again to sit down and chat with me a little bit about some tillage and this specifically autonomous tillage solution. We've had some great wins. It's been really fun to see the work that you've been doing with these customers and what we've learned over these past two years. And I'm really excited to see where John Deere is going to take autonomy into the future. So thanks again for doing this.

Tyler: Yeah, thanks for having me.

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