Glacier FarmMedia – In early 2021, John Deere introduced its See and Spray Select system on sprayers. It enabled sprayers to spot spray weeds in a fallow field, offering considerable savings on herbicide use.
However, that kind of green-on-brown technology has limited use in no-till cropping systems. When the feature was launched, the brand made it clear there would be more advancements on that technology, eventually allowing for green-on-green spraying. That is the ability to recognize and spray weeds in a green, growing crop.
In March, Deere made good on that promise and announced the pending introduction of See and Spray Ultimate, a factory-installed system that will be available for the brand’s model year 2023 410R, 412R and 612R sprayers. Its initial launch, however, will be limited to use in corn, soybean and cotton crops.
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“We’ve been on a technology journey with our customers since broadcast spraying,” said Franklin Peitz, marketing manager for John Deere, in a press release. “We moved to a zone focus with section control and then advanced to individual row control with ExactApply. We’re excited to optimize each individual plant using See and Spray’s artificial intelligence and machine learning.”
See and Spray technology was developed by the Blue River Technology company, which Deere purchased a few years ago. That tech firm has now supplied the green brand with several high-tech systems for its production machines, proving it was a good investment for the green brand.
The See and Spray Ultimate system uses cameras and processors mounted on a new carbon fibre, truss-style boom to collect visual data and relay that to the on-board computer, which has been programmed to detect weeds and distinguish them from crop plants.
There is one camera mounted every metre across the width of the boom, which equates to 36 cameras on a 120-foot boom, capable of scanning more than 2,100 square feet at one time. BoomTrac Ultimate, Deere’s boom height control system, helps the system function efficiently, according to the company.
“While operating at up to 12 miles per hour, See and Spray Ultimate’s targeted spray technology can help farmers reduce their non-residual herbicide use by more than two-thirds and maintain a hit rate comparable to traditional spraying,” said Peitz. “For farmers, this decreased herbicide use can significantly lower herbicide costs, reduce tendering stops and help them cover more acres per day.”
Sprayers equipped with See and Spray Ultimate will use a split tank design with dual-product capability, allowing for a two-product application in one pass, which helps battle herbicide resistance. The system can broadcast spray a residual action herbicide from one tank to prevent future weed growth and at the same time it can spot spray another non-residual herbicide only where weeds are detected. Or the system can be set to only spot spray where necessary.
“Farmers can apply a residual broadcast application and non-residual targeted application in a pre-emergence pass or targeted spray only as a cleanup pass,” Peitz said.
“We executed several strip trials. And in one strip trial in Illinois soybeans, we compared the weed control results of a broadcast, single tank mix to See and Spray Ultimate’s dual product solution system. The single tank mix had three modes of action and with dual product we were able to add a fourth mode of action that wouldn’t be as effective with a one tank mix due to antagonism (incompatible chemicals).
“The See and Spray Ultimate dual product pass with the fourth mode of action resulted in seven per cent better weed control than the broadcast pass, providing better yield protection for the farmer. Through the addition of another mode of action, chances for herbicide resistance development are also reduced, adding another layer of yield protection for the future.”
Two tank options will be available on sprayers equipped with the See and Spray Ultimate — a 1,200-gallon version (4,542 litres) and a smaller 1,000-gallon version (3,785 litres).
The 1,200-gallon option is split into a 450-gallon tank (1,703 litres) for targeted spraying and a 750-gallon tank (2,839 litres) for broadcast spraying. The 1,000-gallon option is split into a 350-gallon tank (1,324 litres) for targeted spraying and a 650-gallon tank (2,460 litres) for broadcast spraying.
As a sprayer equipped with the system travels through a field, the Generation 4 display allows an operator to analyze savings by seeing how much ground was covered compared with how much was sprayed. For even more data to analyze, after each pass a map showing weed pressure within each field is available through the John Deere Operations Center. This enables farmers to compare their weed maps to their yield maps and make decisions about their weed control programs, providing another analytical tool to help make more informed field management decisions.
“From a sustainability standpoint, See and Spray Ultimate can help farmers use less herbicide and decreases opportunities for drift, and that’s better for everyone,” Peitz said.
A limited number of systems will be available for customer order later this year.
– This article was originally published at Grainews.
