US giant John Deere has continued its assault on the sprayer market by purchasing carbon-fibre boom maker King Agro, which already supplies the R4050i self-propelled sprayers with lightweight booms.

See also: John Deere pays $305m for tech company

In 2015, the two firms agreed to develop and distribute carbon-fibre booms to John Deere customers and, in March 2017, a new production facility was opened in Valencia, Spain, to accommodate the increased volume.

This is the latest in a number of recent purchases by Deere, after the firm hoovered up Italian sprayer maker Mazzotti and paid a whopping US$305m for Blue River Technology, a leader in machine learning.

Along with the Valencia plant, King Agro has another factory in Campana, Argentina, where the family-owned firm employs 180 people.