A project 20 years in the making became a reality, when Horsch debuted its autonomous planter at the Bahia Farm Show in Brazil last week, according to a report from Future Farming.

The Horsch Gantry RO G 500 is a self-propelled seeder with the ability to autonomously follow lines previously planned on the computer. It has a centralized motor unit, positioned above the planting rows. Traction is front and rear, with wheel spacing of 36 feet and 13 feet respectively. It also has central seed tanks with a total capacity of 3,170 gallons.

This story reminds me of a conversation we had with Lucas Horsch, CEO of Horsch in North America, at the National Farm Machinery Show earlier this year. We asked him about his vision for the future of the company, and he talked about the importance of learning from new technologies and farming practices in other countries, like Brazil.

“We have so many locations all over the world, we know all the farming practices. We adapted our products to the different worlds. We have a lot of context. Even tonight, we have some guys from Kazakhstan who are visiting us, and we made a dinner appointment.

We want to be a platform where everybody can learn from each other, and we can just exchange, and give some other perspective. Talking product is easy, it’s nothing very fun. Because in farming you always need to adapt, that’s the most important thing.”

We’ll continue to follow the development of the Horsch Gantry RO G 500 autonomous planter on PrecisionFarmingDealer.com.