AGCO Launches New Tech Brand PTx

Editor's Note: This story has been updated with adjusted information from AGCO Corporation.

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AGCO Corporation on Monday announced the launch of its new precision ag brand, PTx.

PTx includes AGCO's Precision Planting business. It also includes the $2 billion joint venture finalized last week by Trimble and AGCO. PTx Trimble, the company announced on Monday, combines Trimble's ag portfolio with AGCO's JCA Technologies. JCA, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, was purchased by AGCO in 2022. JCA specializes in the design of electronic systems and software development to automate and control agricultural equipment.

"I've been in the industry my whole life at this intersection of agriculture and innovation. It's the most exciting time in my career," AGCO CEO Eric Hansotia told DTN/Progressive Farmer. "There's so much excitement in the organization with my whole leadership team ... about what this can mean for farmers. It's the biggest ag tech deal in history. And we want to make the most of it and to do that quickly."

See DTN/Progressive Farmer's full interview with Hansotia below.

AGCO has acquired an 85% stake in PTx Trimble, and Trimble will hold a 15% stake. Going forward, the PTx Trimble joint venture will be consolidated into AGCO's financial statements.

Seth Crawford, AGCO senior vice president and general manager of PTx, will lead the new organization. Andrew Sunderman, a 12-year veteran of AGCO, has been named general manager of PTx Trimble. Keith Crow will continue to lead Precision Planting as general manager.

The new PTx website is www.ptxag.com.

PTx is not an acronym, AGCO said. But the PTx brand is rooted in AGCO's heritage -- "Precision Technologies multiplied (multiplied represented by the lower case x)." Precision Planting's visual identity retains in it the brand's well-known corn plant as a nod to its heritage. The PTx Trimble visual identity mirrors that of the PTx leading brand, AGCO explains.

PTx will serve farmers in three ways, AGCO said. First, specialized precision ag dealers will help farmers retrofit almost any make or vintage of equipment they already own with the latest technologies. Second, PTx will expand its relationships with more than 100 original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners that can integrate products from the PTx portfolio directly at the factory. Third, new machines from AGCO's brands -- Fendt, Massey Ferguson and Valtra -- will offer factory-fit technology from the PTx portfolio.

Here is the interview with Hansotia.

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DTN/Progressive Farmer: This is a big day, something you've been working toward for several months. Give us an overall picture of what this means for AGCO.

Eric Hansotia: If you don't mind, I'll actually answer with what it means for farmers. AGCO intends to be the most farmer-focused company in the industry. We're going to serve every single farmer. We're going to serve the farmer that already has a piece of equipment that wants (a) retrofit upgrade, we'll serve the farmer that wants a new piece of equipment from one of our OEM partners, or a new piece of equipment from one of our brands. The whole notion here is bringing the two best teams together to innovate faster, innovate more all the way around the crop cycle to solve some of the toughest problems in farming, and then also develop the strongest precision ag tech dealer network.

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DTN/PF: I'm tempted to look at PTx as kind of a technology lab. I'm guessing that's not what you mean. Would you tell us what PTx is in terms of putting out technology products?

Hansotia: My personal reaction to the word "lab" is it could sound like a science fair project. We're not doing that. I was just at Precision Planting yesterday. That's a team who is right in the market, working with farmers every day to understand their farming problems, equipping them with the (solutions) to be able to innovate super-fast, and then work with farmers to help the farmer understand the value in that solution. So, that's what we're trying to generate. We're trying to generate the culture of being with farmers, very farmer focused and a culture of rapid, low-cost, high-impact innovations.

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DTN/PF: Would you explain the structure of PTx?

Hansotia: PTx is precision technologies multiplied ... big P, big T, small x. That's the umbrella name or brand over the entire tech business unit within AGCO. That's what we want the market to experience, to have (it) feel one team working on technology. One component is this new (joint venture) we formed as the Trimble ag team plus JCA. That's called PTx Trimble. The other element of PTx is Precision Planting. It's still named officially Precision Planting. (Its) technology is created for precision. And so, when you hear us talk, it'll be PTx Trimble and Precision Planting working side by side to create one overall experience. That's precision technologies multiplied.

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DTN/PF: What should farmers expect today, now that PTx is officially up and running?

Hansotia: We want to create a lot of good first impressions from day one. We've already taken orders, we've invoiced product, the systems are running. What (farmers) should expect is that we're accelerating the pace of innovation and accelerating the scope of innovation. (Acceleration) of innovation all the way around the crop cycle, from soil sampling, to planting and air seeding to application equipment, to harvesting, water management, carbon management.

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DTN/PF: What is AGCO's retrofitting target? Is there a cutoff year, an equipment type?

Hansotia: Trimble (has) 10,000 models of machinery out there, where they had designed retrofit capabilities where you could put their guidance onto an old tractor or an old sprayer and older combine, and went back many, many years. Essentially, for one, they have steer-by-wire capability. The retrofit capabilities largely coming out of Precision Planting are all model dependent -- (what's) the core technology they're building off of? But a rule of thumb, if you want, I'd say 20-plus years old, something like that is probably a rough estimate of when retrofit doesn't make sense anymore.

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DTN/PF: What are your first goals?

Hansotia: The first element is solidifying the confidence of the customer. There are a lot of people who historically bought Trimble technology. We want to reassure them that all of the great experiences they had with that technology will continue and that we aim to continue to support them as well or better than they've ever been supported in the past. So, that's one element. Second thing is reassuring and building confidence around the OEM customer. A third element is standing up the AGCO channel. We're going to (get) the AGCO dealers focused selling Trimble technology through the AGCO channel.

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DTN/PF: Talk about cameras and sensors in automation of the agronomy loop.

Hansotia: There are so many different functions that can be achieved for the farmer. On the one hand is targeted spraying. We've talked a lot about that additional ability to see a weed, sense a weed, spray that weed with just the right chemical. There's real guidance that can be done with a camera. If there is implement drift, the camera can sense exactly where the row is and make sure that the wheels are staying in between the plants. That's the second feature. A third feature is real-time scouting. (With cameras), we can sense weed pressure, pest pressure, fertilization gaps, take a real-time snapshot, send that back to the farmer and say here's what we're seeing, there's a recommended action that needs to be taken here. Once you start having these visual libraries of information, (artificial intelligence) tools can be applied to give insights back to the farmer.

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DTN/PF: AGCO has a has set a goal for 2030, to offer a season-long, autonomous system. Can you give your customers, or your future customers, a vision of what that would look like?

Hansotia: It's essentially the ability to take the operator out of the cab. I actually am more excited about all of the steps that are required to get to that outcome. And that means automating every one of those features that the operator does today, because every one of those features is complicated. (Precision Planting's) SmartFirmer is taking 780,000 measurements a minute, and then make real-time adjustments to the planter in depth or population or fertilization rates. This is an example (of what is) needed to have autonomy. They add value the minute we launched them; we don't need to wait for autonomy. They add value to the farmer today, with the operator still in the cab. I think (autonomy) will be small relative to all the big breakthroughs we will deliver to the market between now and then.... (Autonomy) is the last step because we've automated everything else.

Dan Miller can be reached at dan.miller@dtn.com

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