The Electric Drive Question

For a few years now, electric planter drives have been on the market. Not only have they been on the market, but they have been steadily growing market share. However, for those of us west of the Missouri River, it has been a bit harder to make the leap because the ROI wasn’t as obvious. When I’m on the smaller, broken up fields of the Central and Eastern Corn Belt, it’s pretty obvious the savings that Row by Row Control, Turn Compensation, and Shut Off offer me over a traditional setup. But when we get to the Western Corn Belt, those advantages don’t carry the same weight that they do east of us.

This week, my guest is Hope Lewis, our TM for Ag Leader Technology. Hope serves Nebraska, Colorado, Western Kansas, and Wyoming. So if there is somebody that understands the landscapes that we deal with, it is Hope. On this week’s video, Hope talks about how Electric Drives can show an ROI on these types of fields as well.

Sometimes you have to look beyond the obvious, what pays the bills in the east is mostly irrelevant in the west. But, when we look at other things like the elimination of about 100 moving parts that can have minor to catastrophic failures that influence seed placement or singulation, then the profitability perspective comes back into focus. I never want us to grasp for reasons to adopt a technology, but that also means that we can’t dismiss benefits that aren’t immediately obvious either.

Guest Blog by Keith Byerly of Central Valley Ag