Future significance of technology trends in arable farming

As in previous years, the farms surveyed consider the area of energy-efficient and soil-conserving track and tire systems to be one of the most important technology trends. Adapted lane planning and optimized tire pressure can improve traction, minimize slippage and protect the soil as a production factor. In addition to conserving resources, this can also increase efficiency.

As in the previous year, practitioners rated the importance of other technology trends as slightly lower than, for example, science and consulting or industry, trade and processing. The reasons for this were not asked and presumably also differ for the individual trends.

In the case of site-specific cultivation as well as harrowing and chopping technology, the basic technology can in principle be regarded as established. Both technology trends are again considered to be among the most important technology trends by all participants.

The first smart or spot spraying products were ready for the market this year, but the transition into practice still seems to be taking some time, which is why farmers considered this area to be less important than, for example, science and advice.

In the area of interoperability and compatibility between agricultural machinery, sensor technology and data services, many solutions only work together to a limited extent and there are (still) problems with data consolidation and processing. This is well known in the scientific community, but the study results show that farmers are apparently not yet confronted with this problem too often in practice because the relevant data is not yet merged. Accordingly, the scientific community also attaches greater importance to this technological trend than practitioners.