Manufacturers Enhance Ability to Use Precision Ag

Kelly MarshallAg Group, AgGateway, Connectivity

AgGateway My family just lost a full day of harvest when our precision monitor wouldn’t play nicely with the combine, but AgGateway says that is nearly a thing of the past.  A group of equipment manufacturers will soon be releasing products to enhance connectivity across different systems, regardless of brand.

“I’m excited to announce the commitment by a lead group of companies to release their conversion tools to the market,” said Mark Stelford, Chairman of AgGateway’s ADAPT Oversight Committee and General Manager of Premier Crop Systems.

“The ADAPT framework removes the complexity of managing multiple data formats for farm management systems, helping software developers instead to focus on delivering value-added features for their agricultural customers,” said Tarak Reddy, Chair of AgGateway’s ADAPT Technical Committee and Delivery Architect of John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group. “The framework maps multiple data formats into a common agriculture model created by experts from a broad range of companies and organizations within the agriculture industry.”

Companies that have committed to using ADAPT and releasing plug-ins for many of their proprietary data formats currently include AGCO Corporation, Ag Leader Technology, CLAAS, CNH Industrial, Deere & Company, Praxidyn, Raven Industries, Topcon Precision Agriculture, and Trimble Navigation. This commitment by major precision ag equipment manufacturers will help drive the broad adoption of AgGateway’s ADAPT, Stelford notes.

ADAPT, or Agricultural Data Application Programming Toolkit, is an open-source program that represents many years of work.  It consists of an Agricultural Application Data Model, and common API, and a combination of open source and property data conversion plug-ins.

The toolkit was released in February of this year; plug-in development will vary by manufacturer, but some are immediately available while others can be looked for in 2017.  AgGateway has also developed an ISO plug-in (also open-source) to support a broad range of ISO compatible systems.

“ADAPT represents a monumental amount of work over several years, by many people across the agriculture industry,” said Stelford. “We believe the adoption of ADAPT gets us to the tipping point where growers, agronomists and other participants can effortlessly use their data to drive improved decisions in their operations.”