Farmers Say Intelligent Tractors "Acted Like They Were Demon Possessed" After Signal Out of Space

Solar storms are driving farmers "crazy."

Tractor Beam

We're approaching the most active part of the Sun's 11-year cycle. Our star is flinging a barrage of charged streams of plasma and particles at us this year, a trend that according to NASA will continue well into 2025 and even 2026.

One example of how that stellar fury affects the Earth, apart from triggering gorgeous auroras in the night sky: farmers say the barrage of solar particles has wreaked havoc on their high-tech agricultural equipment.

The issue is that modern tractors are highly dependent on GPS, which is provided by sensitive satellites in our planet's orbit. One extreme solar storm in May, they say, threw off equipment when planting season was already in full swing.

"Our tractors acted like they were demon possessed," aurora chaser Elaine Ramstad told SpaceWeather.com. "All my cousins called me during the May 10th storm to tell me that 'my auroras' were driving them crazy while they were planting."

Demon Haunted Field

Modern tractors rely on precise GPS coordinates to navigate fields. But with charged particles distorting radio signals from GPS satellites, some of them started acting erratically, stopping abruptly or weaving back and forth.

"I would guess 80 percent or more of all farmers in the Midwest use at least basic GPS for something — whether it's auto-steer or yield mapping," John Deere service manager Ethan Smidt told SpaceWeather. "At least 50 percent of all farmers are VERY reliant on GPS and use it on every machine all year long."

During particularly violent solar storms, charged particles fill the Earth's ionosphere, the part of the Earth's upper atmosphere that creates a protective barrier between us and electrically charged particles from the Sun.

The layer is also responsible for transmitting GPS signals from satellites down to the surface. So changing densities of the ionosphere, caused by this bombardment of charged particles, can distort radio signals as they make their way through.

Ramstad recalled to SpaceWeather that her GPS "was off by close to a foot" during the day. "By nightfall, there was no controlling the Autosteer."

And farmers should expect more chaos, as NASA has predicted that solar maximum could last for another one to two years.

Fortunately for them, engineers are already looking for ways to reduce farmers' reliance on GPS signals by making use of machine learning and AI for navigation instead.

More on solar storms: A Colossal Solar Flare Just Triggered a Radio Blackout on Earth