![]() Only as much herbicide as necessary and as little as possible needs to be sprayed – this pays off financially as well as ecologically. "By integrating the Smart Spraying Solution from Bosch BASF Smart Farming with our intelligent field sprayers, we want to offer farmers an innovative technology for optimal weed management in the future. This supports sustainable farming and improves resource efficiency, while helping to reduce environmental impacts. Global field trials in various locations under different agronomic conditions have shown that the Smart Spraying Solution delivers a more efficient use of herbicide without compromising weed control. It also helps ensure future legal requirements and that EU pesticide reduction targets are met.”ĭelivering efficiency and supporting sustainable farmingīosch BASF Smart Farming is the joint venture responsible for marketing and commercializing the Smart Spraying Solution technology worldwide. Konstantin Kretschun, Co-Managing Director of Bosch BASF Smart Farming, adds: "Introducing the Smart Spraying Solution to farmers in Germany and Hungary is an important achievement and step towards optimizing crop protection use. In addition, with its connection to the xarvio FIELD MANAGER platform, the system also offers farmers actionable insights and digital tools such as customized agronomic recommendations, weed distribution and as-applied maps, automated sensitivity levels and easy-to-use documentation that can be used for reporting purposes. This ensures herbicide is applied in the right dose and only where it is needed. As the sprayer passes over a field, the system in milliseconds distinguishes crops from weeds and controls individual spray nozzles with pinpoint accuracy. Manufacturers also have expressed interest in this new technology and how it can be adapted into their own sprayer designs.The Smart Spraying Solution offers real-time, automated weed detection and precision spraying both on pre-emergence (“green-on-brown”) and post-emergence (“green-on-green”). The intelligent sprayer has received several recognitions, including a national award from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers and the 2018 Innovator of the Year Award from CFAES. The team is also working to develop an intelligent sprayer kit that can be retrofitted onto almost any sprayer, which would reduce the additional expense to utilize this new technology. Given these significant savings in chemical costs, a grower with a 100-acre field could recoup the cost of the intelligent sprayer within one year. ![]() “Preventing environmental pollution by pesticides of air or of water must be as important today as controlling pests, if not more important,” Ozkan said. “The technology employed in the intelligent sprayer is one example of achieving both: satisfactory pest control and the reduction of the risk associated with pollution of the environment with pesticides.”īy reducing the overall use of pesticides, nursery growers who have used the intelligent sprayer report chemical savings of around $230 per acre annually. The sprayer development team, from left: Heping Zhu, Erdal Ozkan, Luis Canas, Adam Clark, Mike Klingman, Christopher Ranger, Michael Reding, Andy Doklovic and Barry Nudd. “Applying a fixed rate of pesticides continuously regardless of variations in the target conditions is no longer a principle we can practice.” “Using conventional sprayers, growers simply turn on the sprayer at one end of the row of trees and stop spraying at the other end,” said Erdal Ozkan, professor of agricultural engineering in CFAES’s Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering (FABE). “We are still using the same type of sprayers designed more than 60 years ago. Their “intelligent sprayer” is the first automatic spraying system of its kind in the world. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and The Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) is promising just that. IT’S NOT OFTEN that a grower comes across a piece of new equipment that can give a full return on investment in one year and can reduce their farm’s impact on the environment.īut a device developed by researchers from the U.S. Story by Chip Tuson | Photos by Ken Chamberlain “Preventing environmental pollution by pesticides of air or of water must be as important today as controlling pests, if not more important.” Erdal Ozkan Administrative Cabinet and Department Chairs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |