* Photo: John Deere AMS * In October 1996, writer William Booth predicted that tractors would soon get really clever, and 12 years later, John Deere's newest model is wicked smart. Old-school machines are dumb as dirt, dumping the same amount of fertilizer and pesticide everywhere. But not this GPS-fed genius: During harvest, sensors collect data on crop health and yield to determine precisely how much each square foot of soil should be nourished, weed-whacked, and bug-zapped the following spring. For each acre, this tech saves farmers $10 to $20 — and spares streams and groundwater 10 to 20 pounds of chemical pollution.
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