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FORUM Black Chicagoans are determined not to see a repeat of the tactics that sustained the racial wealth gap | PAGE 11 ◗ F. Christopher Lee, co-founder and president of Johnson & Lee Architects, got an up-close view of the redlining, blockbusting days of white flight that quickly remade Chicago’s neighborhoods between the 1930s and the 1970s.
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The AI farm of the future is already being built D
on’t be fooled by the miles of grain blurring into one endless golden field as you blast past on I-88. Those stalks only look interchangeable. Farm equipment today can see each individual plant and know which is a crop, which is a weed. A John Deere combine rattling across the Gaesser Farms in Ankeny, Iowa, can recognize what type of grain is being harvested,
consider the direction of the wind and the slope of the ground before adjusting itself accordingly, orienting among the corn and soybeans with far more precision than the smartphone in your pocket can tell you where you’re standing. While the Global Positioning System satellites locate your phone within a foot or two, combines further triangulate the GPS signal with incredible accuracy,
using a pair of stationary correction towers. “We apply everything within one inch of where it’s supposed to be,” said Chris Gaesser, who farms 5,400 acres with his father, Ray. Such precision is necessary if you want to, say, spray herbicide on weeds but not on the dirt between them. Or remember that See DEERE on Page 20
JOHN R. BOEHM
If you think your smartphone has some fancy features, you ought to drive a Deere X9 combine I BY NEIL STEINBERG
Deere’s X9 1100 combine
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GREG HINZ
TECHNOLOGY
Mayor Johnson’s move to leave business off his pension panel sends a signal. PAGE 2
Argonne finishes its most powerful supercomputer yet. PAGE 3
JOHN R. BOEHM
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6/23/23 3:04 PM