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The 90-ft. planter has now been eclipsed, by a whopping 30%. 120 feet of precision planting packed into the new John Deere/Bauer Built DB120. It was introduced at the recent National Farm Machinery Show, where Precision.AgWired.com offered an up close and personal look at it.

Corn & Soybean Digest offered a profile on the new planter, talking to Deere’s Rob Rippchen.

“As growers get bigger, they’re looking for more productivity from their equipment to plant more acres per day,” says Rob Rippchen, Deere’s division marketing manager for the new planter. “At 120 ft., the DB120 has 30% more productivity than our 36-row, DB90 planter and will match up wit h our 12-row corn heads.” Depending on field conditions, the DB120 should plant 90-100 acres/hour at the recommended 5-5½ mph, according to Rippchen.

It’s not just big, it’s high-tech. “The DB120 is a front-fold, 5-section, flex-frame planter equipped with CCS RefugePlus and Pro-Series XP row units,” Rippchen says. “The planter will be offered with 125 bu. of seed capacity, SeedStar 2 monitoring and variable-rate seed drives, pneumatic down force and RowCommand as standard equipment.” Front-mounted coulters or row cleaners are optional.

The DB120’s Frame basically is a bigger version of the company’s DB90 planter built by Vaughn Bauer, Bauer Built Manufacturing Inc., Paton, IA. The DB120’s outer wings are 30-ft. sections, rather than the 15-ft. outer wings on the DB90. The three center sections on both frames measure 20 ft. The DB120’s new design eliminates marker arms and instead relies on GPS guidance for planting accuracy.

What’s the future for planter size?  “At this point, 120 ft. is a practical limit. You need to go in 30- or 40-ft. increments and I have a hard time getting my head around a 150-ft. planter,” Rippchen and Bauer say. “The issue isn’t the weight in the field, but transporting the unit down the road. That puts the most load on the drawbar at the highest speed. We won’t introduce anything that our tractors can’t handle.”

 Seed distribution would be an issue for a larger planter, adds Bauer. “It’s no problem building the frame, but we would have to rethink how we deliver seed.”

The message that technology of precision farming allows greater efficiency was heard loud and clear from presenters at the ninth annual Nebraska Agricultural Technologies Association conference, recently held in Grand Island.

As reported in the Grand Island Independent, Program coordinator and University of Nebraska Extension educator Dave Varner, says Nebraska farmers are on the cutting edge.

“Our Nebraska farmers are among the leaders in the nation in adopting these new technologies, such as the GPS auto steer technology that has taken the industry by storm,” Varner said.

Along with improving operational efficiencies, Varner said farmers are now farming more acres with fewer resources and “they are looking to get more profit out of each acre.”

“This technology allows them to look at each acre individually and to fine-tune their inputs and to really monitor their yields year-in-and-year-out to see, over the long run, what farming operations and inputs are returning on their investments,” Varner said.

An example of how improved technology has increased agricultural productivity is the ever-increasing yields of corn and soybeans over the last decade despite weather challenges, such as drought, strong winds, heavy rains and flooding.

Varner also sees big technology strides being made in water use efficiency. “You are going to see this technology turning toward water conservation and efficiency,” he said. “You will see the introduction of technologies that will help farmers keep track of evapotranspiration by field rather than by the region,” Varner said. “You will see them doing it at home, via their cell phone. They will have farm networks that will not only monitor farm moisture and irrigation systems, but other aspects of their farming operations.”