John Deere unveiled the largest planter in the industry at the 2009 National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville this week.

Rob Rippchen, division marketing manager at John Deere seed in Moline, IL says the DB120 “next generation” 120 foot planter is generating a lot of interest at the show. “There’s kind of a ‘wow’ factor,” said Rob. “It’s so wide it can’t even unfold all the way in our booth.” But he says the outer four row units fold over on each end so it is still the same transport width as the DB90 and just about six foot longer in transport length.

“Not only is the planter wide, it’s high-tech,” Rob explains. “You’ll notice that there are no markers on it, most growers are using auto-steer or auto-trac to guide their planters so that allowed us to eliminate the need for markers. But, in addition to that, Row Command – our individual row unit clutch on-off system – is standard on this planter. So, as you come to a point row or do an area of field that you’ve already planted, it shuts the row unit off so that you don’t over-populate in that area of the field.”

The planter will plant somewhere between 90 and 100 acres an hour. John Deere will have a limited number of the new planters running in the fields this spring and will start taking orders for the big boy this summer.

Listen to an interview with Rob here [audio:http://zimmcomm.biz/nfms/nfms09-jd-rob.mp3]

Watch Rob explain some of the DB120 features here:

See more photos here: NFMS 09 Photo Album