ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,310,280, issued on May 27, was assigned to Precision Planting LLC (Tremont, Ill.).
"Systems and apparatuses for soil and seed monitoring" was invented by Michael Strnad (Delavan, Ill.) and Timothy Kater (Bloomington, Ill.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A soil apparatus (e.g., seed firmer) includes a locking system. In one embodiment, the soil apparatus includes a lower base portion for engaging in soil of an agricultural field, an upper base portion, and a neck portion having protrusions to insert into the lower base portion of a base and then lock when a region of the upper base portion is inserted into the lower base portion and this r...