July 2023 - 18

BERRIES
PINPOINT PRECISION
Vision-guided herbicide sprayer senses pesky weeds
BY GARY PULLANO
FGN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT
P
recision spraying has reduced total herbicide use
for row crop operations compared to broadcast
applications, without negatively impacting weed
control or crop fitness and yield.
Determining how these systems work in perennial
crops, including fruits such as blueberries, apples
and grapes, has spurred studies by a Michigan State
University (MSU) weed scientist.
Sushila Chaudhari, assistant professor and weed
scientist in the MSU Department of Agriculture,
shared early results of her study of a chlorophyll
fluorescence-sensing herbicide sprayer during the
International Fruit Tree Association's conference in
Grand Rapids, Michigan, in February. She further
outlined its potential during an MSU Spring Blueberry
online Extension webinar in early April.
By reducing the use and cost of herbicides and
improving crop safety by reducing off-target movement,
farm operators can experience needed efficiencies in
targeting one of their top nemeses - weeds,
Chaudhari said.
Precision weed management technology that features
plant detection based on chlorophyll has led to new
products on the commercial market including WEED-IT
Quadro by Weed-it Ag System, WeedSeeker by Trimble Ag
Solution and See & Spray by John Deere.
More advanced weed species identification technology
is still being developed by Blue River Technology and
John Deere, but is not available on a commercial basis.
This technology features deep learning algorithms to
enable recognition of not only the
presence but also the identity of
different weeds within crops.
There has been limited research
Blueberry Plants
Directly From the Grower
done in specialty crops. Studies
done in Arizona revealed precision
spraying could reduce total herbicide
applications without negatively
affecting weed control efficacy or
crop fitness and yield.
Chaudhari's goal was to enhance
SUSHILA
the knowledge about the use of
vision-guided sprayers (VGS) in perennial crops. She
studied the effect of application timing on VGS sprayer
sensitivity to accuracy and evaluated the system's
weed control efficacy and crop safety. The herbicide
efficacy of the VGS was compared to traditional
broadcast applications.
Chaudhari opted to use the WEED-IT Quadro in her
CHAUDHARI
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research because of its simplicity of design and use.
The unit detects chlorophyll in the leaves of actively
growing weeds. The chlorophyll reacts by emitting a
near-infrared signal, which is received and analyzed by
the sensors. Spray booms connected to the sensors are
activated to target the weeds. The sensor will tell the
sprayer to activate or not before spraying.
The unit is mounted on an all-terrain vehicle. One
sensor can control four spray nozzles. Each nozzle
covers 25 centimeters of area. It has four independent
sensing zones that consist of a 3.3-foot swath width.
The system evaluated different weed densities in
apples (weed density was low), blueberries (weed density
was moderate using a black plastic weed cloth) and
grapes (weed density was high).
http://www.degrandchamps.com
July 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2023
