More equipment companies involved in precision agriculture are deploying remote diagnostic capabilities as part of a broader telematic system offering.

Farm Industry News offers a fascinating look at some of the current technology.

After being on the agriculture market for almost a decade, telematic systems that once were thought to be useful mostly to large farming and custom application operations with far-flung equipment fleets are beginning to offer features that smaller operations may find attractive as well.

The newest systems offer remote diagnostics of power equipment, real-time combine monitoring and on-the-go transfer of prescription application, as-applied and yield maps. GPS-based features like current location, field and transport speeds, and idling versus working time also are becoming more sophisticated.

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