I am writing this blog post while driving, but don’t worry because the tractor is doing all the driving! Yeah, totally cool, right?! Since our minor breakdown yesterday we borrowed a neighbor’s tractor and tillage tool to get some more planting done. What an awfully nice neighbor! Fortunately the tool was available for a day until we get the part for ours.

So this tractor has auto-steer, which is exactly what the word says it is, it automatically steers the tractor from a GPS system and alerts you when you get near the end of the row. So if you take a little snooze, the alarm wakes you up in time to turn the wheel. Pretty cool. We have been shopping for a system since I moved back to Iowa, but the $20,000 price tag is a little hard to swallow. The system does make you more efficient, it can save money on over planting seed, it can help you work longer, and it can help be more efficient with harvesting. So maybe by next fall we will have something that will definitely make my shoulders and neck relax!

They make systems that do the turns for you too, so that you don’t even have to touch a thing once you enter the field and start the tractor. Soon I imagine it will all be done by remote control so that you won’t even have to sit in the tractor. You can just sit at your desk, sell some corn and check the markets all while looking out the window to see your machines doing the work for you. Wasn’t there a movie that had the world run by machines? Oh yeah, TERMINATOR.

By the way, I wrote this entire post in 2 passes up the field. Wow!