Farmers running modern John Deere machinery will have more money in their back pocket this year, with John Deere announcing it has removed ongoing costs for its JDLink service.
JDLink is a digital service that collects agronomic and machine data and transfers it to the John Deere Operations Center.
The service previously cost $450 a year for each machine.
For Darling Downs cotton and grains farmer Tyson Armitage, who runs JDLink on four machines, he's looking at a saving of $1800.
Mr Armitage farms with his parents, Stuart and Maxine, on their 600-hectare irrigated property Wamara, Cecil Plains.
He said JDLink makes recording and transferring data easier and more streamlined.
"The big use is for record keeping mainly; and the most important use for us is with cotton picking we can upload our cotton bales each day as we make them to the gin so they have our cotton data," Mr Armitage said.
"It is a very useful tool and we were paying for it because it is useful but now that it's free, even better, and more farmers will probably be inclined to use it."
Read more:
John Deere Australia and New Zealand precision agriculture manager Benji Blevin said the announcement meant JDLink will be put into the hands of more customers to give them greater insight into their machinery and their business.
"Connectivity is foundational to agriculture and farmers understand access to data and information about their equipment, farm and paddocks is crucial to unlocking productivity and efficiency gains," Mr Blevin said.
"John Deere has always prioritised making the secure collection and transfer of data as cost effective and streamlined as possible, and we have elevated this, so all customers have access to the continuous connectivity of their equipment with no ongoing subscription fees."
Mr Blevin said JDLink connectivity also granted full access to remote backup support service, John Deere Connected Support. This includes tools like Remote Display Access to allow a dealer to view the in-cab display and offer advice or resolve problems.
JDLink was introduced to the Australian market in 2011 and connection to the service was previously handled via a subscription managed by dealers.
Instead, farmers can now connect individual machines or their entire fleet to the John Deere Operations Center themselves.
Older John Deere machines can be connected to JDLink by installing a 3G or 4G MTG.
"When machinery is connected to JDLink it automates the flow of on-farm and machinery data. This means farmers can focus on what is most important, and that's managing their farm," Mr Blevin said.
"By automatically transferring machine and in-field data to the Operation Center, farmers can have almost immediate access to the key data they need on their machines and their people in the palm of their hand.
"At harvest for example, they can see their work totals coming through from the paddock, review the progress being made, and even adjust machine settings in near real-time."