Jahmy Hindman says about 4 trillion corn seeds are planted in the United States each year.
“there's 4 trillion corn seeds that are planted in the United States every year, give or take.”
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Jahmy Hindman
1 episodes · 20 quoted claims
Hindman says roughly fifty years ago 30 to 40 percent of the US population worked directly in agriculture, versus about 1.5 percent today.
“thirty to 40% of the US. population would have been involved in agriculture, uh, directly, right? And today that number is like one and a half percent.”
Hindman says John Deere, a blacksmith who moved from Vermont to Illinois, fashioned the first self-scouring steel plow.
“John Deere's claim to fame is he fashioned, uh, the first self-scouring steel plow, and we're we're proud of that product, obviously.”
Hindman says Deere did not originate the tractor but bought the Waterloo Gas Engine Company, which had an engine it put into tractor form.
“John Deere actually didn't, uh, develop the tractor or start the tractor. That was a a company we bought, uh, the Waterloo Gas Engine Company.”
Hindman, a mechanical engineer with bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees, did his graduate work on artificial neural networks.
“my graduate work was focused in a an area called artificial neural networks, uh, of all things fifteen years ago, right?”
Hindman says precisely planting seed in thirty-inch rows is a core component of agricultural efficiency, which GNSS positioning supports.
“precisely putting that seed in the ground at exactly thirty inch rows, time after time after time after time, uh, is a core component of agricultural efficiency.”
John Deere has partnered with InnerPlant, which genetically modifies plants to fluoresce at different wavelengths depending on the stress they are under.
“there's a company called InnerPlant, uh, that we've partnered with that is genetically modifying plants to allow them to fluoresce at a certain wavelength”
Hindman says John Deere has had fully autonomous tractors in limited customer applications for the last four years.
“we've had full autonomy on, uh, those tractor products in limited applications with customers over the last four years.”
Hindman says Deere's autonomous tractor uses sixteen cameras with overlapping fields of view and frame-by-frame calibration to get depth.
“sixteen cameras, overlapping fields of view, uh, we do frame by frame calibration so that we get depth from that that sensor array as well.”
Deere's autonomous tractor runs embedded NVIDIA Orin GPUs, which Hindman says must be hardened for shock, vibration and temperature.
“we run embedded GPUs, NVIDIA, uh, uh, orin, uh, platform GPUs on that on that product.”
Hindman says Deere's self-propelled sprayer has a boom spreading to 120 feet and travels at about fifteen miles an hour.
“that machine has a boom that will spread out to 120 feet. Uh, it will travel at about fifteen miles an hour”
Deere's See and Spray sprayer has thirty-six cameras across its boom and nine embedded GPUs to detect weeds.
“we put thirty six cameras across that boom, uh, we put nine, uh, embedded GPUs on that product”
John Deere partners with Starlink to put low Earth orbit satellite terminals on products where terrestrial cellular coverage is poor.
“we partner with Starlink to put low Earth orbit, uh, satellite terminals on product”
Hindman says Deere's yield maps show how much crop came from an area about the size of a pizza box, roughly one square meter.
“about the size of a pizza box, maybe one square meter of resolution, how much corn or soybeans or whatever the crop is came from that particular area.”
John Deere Operations Center is the company's digital offering to customers, available on desktop and as an Android or iOS mobile app.
“John Deere Operations Center. Um, it's it's our digital offering to customers”
Hindman says embedded GPU compute at the edge trails data center compute by roughly six years in operations per unit of power.
“It trails roughly six years, the data center compute in terms of, um, in terms of, uh, operations that you can you can run on a given unit of power.”
Hindman says that at a meeting with growers in Pasco, Washington, all had heard of ChatGPT and almost all used it on the farm.
“how many of you, uh, have heard of ChatGPT? And all their hands went up. And I said, how many of you use it on the farm? And almost all their hands went up.”
In response to right-to-repair pressure, Deere released Operations Center Pro Service, which lets owners download controller software to a phone and push it to equipment.
“last July, in response to that, we came out with, um, Operations Pro, Operations Center Pro Service is what the trade name is.”
Hindman says John Deere still provides service parts for tractors that are seventy or eighty years old.
“Today, there are tractors that are seventy or eighty years old that we still provide service parts for.”
Hindman says Deere's Operations Center Pro Service is also available to independent repair shops, not just owners and dealers.
“operations center pro service is also available to independent repair shops.”