lloyd
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
Anyone already using this on a commercial scale for selective weed control in cereals?
Spraying herbicides using camera technology
- Thread starter lloyd
- Start date
- Location
- Near Colchester
Only seen it on the Welkers youtube, it isn't cheap but they could justufy it with glyphos alone on 14K acres I reckon
lloyd
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
With this technology looking eligible for an area payment it will undoubtedly be more popular.
- Location
- Near Colchester
I think that they said that theirs was $90K for a 36m sprayer
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
beltbreaker
Member
- Location
- Ross-shire
On the place my son was on in WA they had an 8000l 36m being an 8r 400 Deere. Anyway this rig was used at times to spray I think he said watermelon?? out of wheat. Said outfit sprayed at 8-10kph or it wasn't accurate but did do 2500ha to a tank or there abouts which took almost a week to empty the tank. I think he said 8 cameras at $15000 a pop. Was 3 years old so tech will have advanced but it may struggle in a 400 seeds/m crop at 150mm rows. But then again I am miles behind on sprayer tech now.
- Location
- North Notts
Fly over with drone then sprayer targets weeds individually. In Europe roundup is to be limited per holding is probably the main driver. The system looks good and very reliable but also very expensive.
Yes,
We (SoilEssentials) have been developing a system in house for the last few years and have quite a few commercial systems out now in the UK and Europe
First use cases are grassland spraying ( docks now, thistles / nettles / ragwort later this year) and potato volunteers in veg crops ( onions last year in NL, broccoli and cauliflower this year)
Have options from a 3 meter quad to fully equipped new sprayer or a retrofit kit.
Depending on the field, it saves 80% to 90% of the herbicide, doesn't kill the clover in grass, and doesn't stunt the crop.
Agritechnica video
Spraying Onions in NL
SoilEssentials website
Jim
We (SoilEssentials) have been developing a system in house for the last few years and have quite a few commercial systems out now in the UK and Europe
First use cases are grassland spraying ( docks now, thistles / nettles / ragwort later this year) and potato volunteers in veg crops ( onions last year in NL, broccoli and cauliflower this year)
Have options from a 3 meter quad to fully equipped new sprayer or a retrofit kit.
Depending on the field, it saves 80% to 90% of the herbicide, doesn't kill the clover in grass, and doesn't stunt the crop.
Agritechnica video
Spraying Onions in NL
SoilEssentials website
Jim
Yes - video hereDo they do a cheaper version, maybe for a 4m boom on a quad perhaps?
However the trade off v a larger sprayer is labour costs.
any demos a happening in Ireland
Planning demos now, but obviously have to wait for the correct crop / weed growth stages. Get in touch if you want to discuss.
Will Blackburn
Member
- Location
- Cheshire
The grassland one needs to be autonomous, 3 or 4 metres. Massive potential.
Yes, totally agree.
However the aim is to use the current commercial system ( which is based on standard sprayer technology which everyone understands) to get the system out there and providing benefits now to people using "normal" sprayers.
If / when we add an autonomous vehicle it will add a number of years to the development process.
Or you could have a SKAi system and one of these
That would do the job
How do you know how much to put in the tank?
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
Here, you can buy individual cameras & make whatever size boom you wantDo they do a cheaper version, maybe for a 4m boom on a quad perhaps?
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
it would be “melons”, but not actually watermelon
camel melon or paddy melon, similar plant to watermelon but the fruit is smaller & not edible - although foxes seem to like them
- Location
- Pinnaroo. South Australia
You don’t. I’m looking into drone mapping so I’ll know how much to spray and use a vr map in tractor
There are several possible solutions.
One is an injection system where you keep clean water in the tank and inject neat herbicide into the flow to the booms.
Another ( which we use) is to have 2 tanks. One ( the large one) holds clean water, the other smaller tank is the mix tank. In the picture below the large tank is 1000 litres, the smaller mix tank is 200 litres.
In the field let water down into the mix tank, add the required chemical and work until you run out. Then add another 200 litres and chem and keep working.
Remember that while you are saving approx 90% chem, you are also saving approx 90% water. So 1000l tank which normally covers 5 ha @ 200 l/ha will cover around 50 ha so also a massive saving in time not travelling to fill up
Drone imagery is an option which some people use, but, although we have built the stitchind software and VRA map production in our kore software, in our experience its a massive pina trying to get good drone imagery due to wind, lighting conditions etc. Its also expensive to get a good quality drone on site at exactly the right time ( weather, crop growth stage, travelling limitations) so prefer the real time option in most cases.
One thing that does work well with drones is spot spraying blackgrass once its above the crop after T2. See here for example
- Location
- Co antrim
So the sprayer pictured above, how much would it cost with 15m hydralic booms and your spot spray system? Also if spraying grass for docks nettles and thistles can it also dectect chickweed?