John Deere and BASF today announced plans to jointly develop a suite of integrated precision farming and farm management solutions for improved execution in the field. These tools, developed together with growers, will provide enhanced field scouting services and tailored agronomic advice. These will help growers to turn data into management decisions more efficiently.

"BASF and John Deere are two leading suppliers in the agricultural business sector and have many years of experience in managing agricultural data," said Markus Heldt, President of BASF's Crop Protection division. "The real value comes from helping growers to interpret this data so they can make more precise and efficient decisions about their crops and operations."

As part of the agreement, BASF will offer a new service for field scouting and agronomic decision support. John Deere will provide a new application for sprayer setup as well as integration of field data via its collaborative farm management portal 'MyJohnDeere.com', which will enable growers to better manage their farm operations.

"By integrating BASF's agronomic expertise with field-proven John Deere application expertise, we will provide a comprehensive management platform that will be open to other partners as well," said Christoph Wigger, John Deere Vice President Sales & Marketing Region 2. "Instead of combining existing tools, we will concentrate our research and development efforts on those innovative solutions that intuitively address growers' needs across the entire crop production value chain."

The goal is to launch the first joint integrated tools by the end of 2014 in key agricultural markets with additional markets to follow.

This non-exclusive agreement complements BASF's recently-announced investment in interactive services for growers. The companies are not disclosing the terms of the agreement.