Computer guided tractors

[john k]

Read this morning how the solar flares have disrupted the gps self guiding system on late model John Deeres.  Right in planting season too.  Problems reported in Mn, Ia, and Nebr.   150K in machinery sitting still due to nature causing a compuer glitch.  Any reports in other parts of the country?  Wonder if this disrupted self driving Teslas?

[gtermini]

I hope they haven't forgotten how to drive without guidance. There was a lot of years before autosteer or even rate controllers were a thing that farming went on. Although I don't envy the guy that has to cultivate a field planted the old way.

[Der Bugmeister]

The more we let machines do for us, the less capable we become of doing the work when the machines fail.  With all the self driving and parking stuff being built into cars these days I hate to think how much worse a lot of these drivers are going to become when they have to do the job themselves!

Hopefully technical glitches like this help remind people of the need to maintain certain competencies!

[highland512]

Dad and I had a good chuckle last Saturday as we were working dirt and planting with 1980's and 90's equipment while the guy down the road had $500,000+ in machinery sitting idle for 3.5 hours due to guidance outages.............

But he probably laughs at us driving by hand while he is eating his lunch and watching YouTube while harvesting 

[fatfillup]

Hadn't heard of the problem but doesn't surprise me. There will always be glitches to deal with in tech.

Feel sorry for the farmers that can't get seed in the ground. 

[walrus]

I'd guess and say the GPS guided tractors save fuel, seed, fertilizer, pesticides etc

[fatfillup]

I'd guess and say the GPS guided tractors save fuel, seed, fertilizer, pesticides etc

Absolutely