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Deere Lawn Div. 50th Anniv.

50 years and 5 million products later, Deere and Company is celebrating the anniversary of its entry into the lawn and garden business. Greg Weeks, product marketing manager for riding lawn equipment, says in 1963 Deere began producing a basic, low horsepower, riding lawn and garden tractor at its plant in Horicon Wisconsin.

Today the company manufactures a variety of lawn and garden tractor models, for home and commercial use, plus the Gator utility vehicle - at several plants in the US. And at various times it's also made walk-behind lawn mowers and snow-mobiles.

For the future, he says look for "autonomous mowers," in fact they're already for sale in Europe.

Starting with the oil crisis in the 1970's, Deere made electric mowers, but stopped in the 90's. Weeks says another possible new product from this division is home electrification and monitoring equipment.