Glimpse of the future: Which direction are the major tractor manufacturers heading?

The most notable Agco acquisitions in the past decade were GSI in 2011, and the same year the company acquired the remaining 50 per cent stake in Laverda (and Fella) from the Italian Argo group.

Major news in 2017 was the purchase of Lely’s grassland equipment business, followed the same year by Precision Planting. Agco remains the only one of the big four which is a pure-play farm machinery business, but the positioning of the Fendt brand has changed.

It is not long ago that Massey Ferguson was the company’s undisputed ‘full liner’. Not anymore, because Fendt has quickly evolved from a German wheeled tractor specialist to a mainstream brand, with a wide portfolio which includes nature green versions of the Challenger tracked tractors and self-propelled and trailed sprayers.

Fendt also has combines, self-propelled forage harvesters, grassland equipment, a planter (made in Brazil and available in the US and Canada in 2020) and, from Agritechnica, a telehandler.

Fendt reckons to have sold 18,000-plus tractors last year [2019] and it aims to sell 20,000 tractors in 2020. It will be interesting to know what the business plan is for the next few years.

Looking forward, it will be interesting to see whether Agco plans to complete the Fendt portfolio with arable equipment? This is not unthinkable, following CNH Industrial’s acquisition of Kongskilde Agriculture in 2017.

Agritechnica certainly gave visitors a few more imminent technological pointers. For example, Valtra is the first tractor maker to offer head’s up display and we are informed a similar system is included in the MF concept tractor.

Joystick steering, commonplace on construction machinery, looks set to make inroads on farm machines, judging by the systems on the Ideal 10 combine and MF concept tractor.

New tractors, including the eagerly-awaited rubber-tracked 8RX, and the surprise reveal of the 9X combine were the main talking points on the company’s Agritechnica stand. Equally interesting was the fascinating glimpse of the future and working prototypes of nine different electrification, automation and artificial intelligence projects.

The most striking, the autonomous electric vehicle, combined a rubber-tracked 500kW (680hp) electric drive unit with an integrated disc harrow. How the electrical power is generated is still up for debate, but it shows how tractors could evolve into ‘power units’ which could be integrated with a number of different implements to effectively create one machine.

Another stunning concept, the 9.2-metre diameter VoloDrone, was developed with German firm Volocopter.

Equipped with two, 60-litre liquid tanks, a pump and a 10m spray boom, the 18-rotor VoloDrone is ready for its first test flight.

Business-wide, John Deere has completed numerous strategic acquisitions during recent years, including sprayer manufacturers Hagie, Mazzotti and PLA.

John Deere’s 2017 purchase of California-based artificial intelligence firm Blue River Technology gave the company see and spray technology, and an example of this was also in the future technology zone.

However, the most visually stunning example of another direction field spraying could take in the future was a 2.7-tonne autonomous self-propelled vehicle fitted with a 560-litre spray tank, 9m spray boom and a barrage of sensors and cameras. Powered by a 37hp petrol engine, it is envisaged that two or three of the autonomous units could work in a field. The vehicle was shipped back to North America once the show ended for further tests. Will we ever see it, or any of the other prototypes again? We will have to wait and see.

Tractors were not the only exhibits on Kubota’s Agritechnica stand, which also included Kverneland, acquired in 2012, and Great Plains, bought in 2016, as a show of strength.

Kubota brought an autonomous prototype tractor and showed a bolt-on electric pto generator at the last show in 2017. From a new product perspective, but for a Stage 5 engine in the M7003 Series, there were no spectacular prototypes at this year’s Agritechnica.

But you can be sure that Kubota is actively developing a wide range of new technologies behind the scenes as it continues to work quietly to achieve its long-term business plan to take a larger share of the global tractor and farm machinery markets.

The Japanese manufacturer has never made a secret of its intentions to grow tractor power above the 170hp French-produced flagship. It remains to be seen whether the M8000 Series (175-210hp) produced for Kubota by Russian-owned Canadian tractor maker Buhler Industries, will make it across the North Atlantic by the next Agritechnica.

Ultimately, Kubota has ambitions to grow the power levels still further to 250hp, most likely using its own European manufacturing facilities, but could Buhler provide Kubota with articulated tractors in the future for certain markets?

You can be quite certain the big three farm machinery players are closely following the proceedings.