A few years ago, a seed company displayed one-row planters in green and red to mark a century of progress. About the only thing those units have in common with today’s planters is that you could pour seed into them. The similarities stop there!

Here’s a glimpse of where modern planter and sprayer technology is headed. You may have heard of these products before, and in some cases, other companies have products that do the same tasks on the market. These three items were selected to give you an idea of where technology might take crop production. If you’re not using these or similar technologies yet, you might be soon.

• CleanSweep lets you adjust residue wheels without leaving the cab. This particular design from Precision Planting allows you to adjust all residue wheels at once by adjusting a lever from the cab. You can raise them or lower them, and you can set the lever so they are running at the depth you feel is right for the field. Get residue wheel settings right without getting out and adjusting each row individually. Keep the planter rolling instead.

There is a dual-action pneumatic cylinder on each row, and 3.5-inch treader wheels are optional. Visit precisionplanting.com.

• PinPoint II allows you to drive in, spray and keep droplet size the same the entire time. Spray droplet size just got even more critical with the introduction of dicamba herbicides for dicamba-tolerant crops. CapstanAg developed technology 20 years ago to help keep droplet size the same at the nozzle by pulsing flow to the nozzles. The technology is already on Case IH sprayers. Similar technology is coming to John Deere sprayers.

CapstanAg recently introduced PinPoint II, an upgraded version of its original nozzle control system. Pull in the field and you’re ready to spray, representatives say. Advantages to this technology include individual nozzle control, turn compensation so the same amount of spray is delivered to each nozzle even on turns and a more uniform application. Learn more at capstanag.com.

PULL IN AND SPRAY: CapstanAg’s latest spin on its technology that delivers the same droplet size every time is a memory that allows you to spray without spraying around the field's perimeter first.

• InCommand now permits two displays on the same farm to talk to each other. Suppose you have two planters going in the same field, trying to finish before it rains. You are in one cab, and you would like information that is in the other cab driven by your son. Display-to-display communication is now a snap with the latest version of Ag Leader’s InCommand system, officials say.

You could even retrieve information from a display inside a tractor cab parked at the barn lot. The latest upgrade of InCommand also features new satellite imagery. Visit agleader.com.

ONE MACHINE TO ANOTHER: The latest innovation to Ag Leader’s InCommand system permits one display to talk to another display in a different piece of equipment. They can share all kinds of maps and data.