How Farmers Are Using Autonomous Equipment to Do More With Less

After years of research and development, autonomous technology has arrived. With labor shortages and changing weather conditions creating smaller productivity windows, autonomy may be the key farmers are looking for. 

Autonomous solutions have finally moved past the trial stage, with limited commercial availability in 2025. Previously, manufacturers had provided farmers with autonomous technology to test — but 2025 marks the first growing season in which farmers bought and used this technology for themselves. 

Autonomous equipment is now out in the fields seeding, spreading fertilizer, weeding, tilling, and hauling grain carts.

Heavy Machinery

AGCO has adjusted its strategies to ensure its technology is compatible with all tractor makes and models. The PTx OutRun autonomous system, which initially launched only for John Deere tractors, added Fendt compatibility later in the technology’s development. 

“We have a retrofit-first, mixed-fleet system, and we are developing around the crop cycle,” said Darcy Cook, senior director of autonomous solutions at PTx Trimble. “From the grain cart to tillage to fertilizer spreaders, we will fill out the full solution for farmers.”

John Deere completely refreshed its autonomous system at the beginning of the year, in January announcing Autonomy 2.0, which is the commercially available product farmers can purchase now. 

“A lot of different farmers are finding interest in autonomy,” said Michael Porter, go-to-market manager for large tractors and tillage at John Deere. “Some just do not have enough time in the day to get their farming done. Some can’t afford help, so they’re looking to autonomy to help fill what they can’t. It’s about allowing them to be super flexible.”

Both companies’ autonomous systems are focused on performing tasks that are easier to automate compared to more complex field jobs like planting. More functions are to be added as the technology develops. 

Gleaning Efficiency

Brandon Munn farms around 5,000 acres of onions, bluegrass, sweet corn, and industrial hemp in north-central Oregon. Munn said he started his autonomous journey using the Carbon Autonomous Tractor Kit (ATK) system by Carbon Robotics for the 2025 growing season. 

Carbon Robotics, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered agriculture robotics company based in California, is developing the Carbon ATK autonomous system to pair with the LaserWeeder, its vision-based, chemical-free weeding tool, as well as perform other tasks such as tillage. 

Munn said he ran four John Deere 6R 195 row crop tractors with the Carbon ATK system and the LaserWeeder implement, and another four without autonomy. While Munn said he is using Carbon ATK in its development phase and is working closely with Carbon Robotics, he purchased the autonomous kits on his own. 

Munn said the hardest part of adopting an autonomous system was letting go of direct control and trusting the technology’s safety measures.

“The learning curve was on my side. With an operator in a tractor, if you want him to stop, speed up, or slow down, you just stop the guy and talk to him,” Munn said. “We use circle pivot irrigation. If I have a man driving the tractor, he can see that the [circle is] moving and running, and he knows not to get in front of the circle, or that he needs to get on the other side of the pivot, so he doesn’t get hit.”

Carbon Robotics’ system largely uses camera-based AI systems and manually applied GPS boundaries to run autonomous tractors. Should the tractor run into obstacles it can’t manage, Carbon also provides 24/7 human supervision to stop or take remote control of the tractor. 

“The more you can automate, the more you can minimize man hours, the more efficient you can be on the farm,” Munn said. “It’s not getting cheaper to farm, so we’re trying to find alternatives, like autonomy, to help us mitigate future expenses.”

Munn said he found no significant efficiencies in the first couple of months using autonomy but found Carbon ATK more reliable than human operators toward the end of the growing season. He said autonomy reduced costs by being able to run 24/7 with almost none of the human operator-associated downtime. He noted the only time he had to stop the tractor was to refuel and perform routine maintenance. 

“I think the new electronics and autonomy are going to be a bigger factor for farmers to be successful in the future than we ever even dreamed about,” Munn said. “Any time you can take human error out by going to autonomy on any routine job, you can improve your efficiency. As a farmer who wants a consistent, quality job every single day, I can see where autonomy is going to be a tool that I can use and depend on in the future.”

The Swarm Approach

Justin Yirsa, a wheat farmer in north-central Montana, said he used Sabanto’s autonomous kit for seeding on his operation this year. Sabanto, an ag technology company based in Illinois and Iowa, applies more of a “swarm” approach to farming than row crop farmers may be used to. 

Rather than using one large tractor to manage fieldwork, Sabanto autonomy focuses on operating multiple systems simultaneously, using lower-horsepower tractors to reduce farmer costs.

As Yirsa’s fleet aged, he said he found it would cost over $2 million to replace the failing machinery. Yirsa said he worked with Sabanto to find a solution without breaking the bank, and determined it would be most efficient to use three autonomous tractors in the 100–120-hp range. 

Yirsa retrofitted his 2013 John Deere 5115M with the Sabanto autonomous kit. He also retrofitted a 15-foot John Deere 1590 No-Till Drill with a 320-gallon liquid fertilizer tank; a Dickey-john Vanguard VM-5600 monitor and Recon blockage sensors to keep track of seed flow; and a Raven RFM 15P fertilizer flow meter. 

With the addition of front weights, a Starlink mini device for better cellular connectivity, and Sabanto’s autonomy system, the fully equipped 5115M cost $163,250.

“Sabanto’s autonomous technology is making me rethink how I farm,” Yirsa said. “I can focus on expanding my operations without being burdened by massive equipment costs.”

Yirsa said he began seeding in mid-April, during which the autonomous tractors covered 872 acres, across 113.5 hours, and burned just under a half-gallon of diesel fuel per acre.