John Deere Names 2026 Technician of the Year Finalists
John Deere has announced the finalists for its 2026 Technician of the Year Awards, with 30 regional finalists being named in five award categories.
Farming at Clare Downs, Cascade - 100km northwest of Esperance - brothers George, Tom and Jack Carmody and their families farm 5000 hectares, where the harvest averaged 4.1 tonnes per hectare for 2110ha of wheat, 2.2 t/ha over 2021ha of canola, 5.2 t/ha from 75ha of barley, and 6t/ha from a 140ha oats crop.
The 2025-2026 bumper season also provided the opportunity to test their new John Deere X9 1000 harvester, fitted with an HD40R front and full Harvest Automation technology, working alongside their existing 2015 John Deere S690.
George Carmody, who operated the harvester for most of the season, says “it’s a good feeling when you buy a machine and it does what you want it to do without too much intervention”.
“The season before, we demonstrated the X9 1000 machine on the farm and the hinged draper front really sold us on it. We estimated we needed three S Series-worth of harvesting capacity, so we decided to give the larger X9 a go, alongside our S690. With just the two machines on the go, we harvested our biggest ever crop in very good time.”
The business opted for the John Deere Harvest Automation Ultimate package, featuring Predictive Ground Speed Automation, Harvest Settings Automation, a John Deere HarvestLab™ 3000 grain analyser and advanced camera technology, to manage speed and grain quality.
The HarvestLab™ analyser is a near-infrared sensor technology that provides real-time, on-the-go measurement of moisture and constituent levels in grain like protein and oil in canola, enabling farmers to make immediate, site-specific harvesting and marketing decisions based on exact quality data. The fully integrated Harvest Automation technology worked to optimise performance by automatically responding and adjusting to crop conditions.
Predictive Ground Speed used forwardfacing cameras and satellite-derived, preharvest biomass maps to automatically adjust the combine speed before entering varying crop conditions.
George found it to be ‘exceptional’, and when combined with the efficiency and consistency of the hinged draper front, he said it helped the combine to ‘really shine’. Operator fatigue was also reduced by removing the need for constant manual assessment and adjustment.
“I’ve been driving headers for 20 years, so the Predictive Ground Speed took a bit of getting used to, but once it’s set, it really feels as if the link between your brain and your arm has been replaced by the John Deere system, doing what you think should be done,” says George.
