TECHNOLOGY and agricultural product suppliers, Bosch and Bayer, have joined forces in a three-year research partnership to develop smart spraying technology that makes the use of pesticides more efficient.

The aim of the collaboration is to develop technology that ensures herbicides are only used where they are really needed and that farmers can use the technology to spray pesticides more efficiently.

“Smart spraying sustainably clears fields of weeds. This safeguards yields while protecting the environment,” Bosch member of the board of management of Bosch, Markus Heyn, said.

Spraying and saving

In the fields, crops like corn and wheat compete with weeds for water, nutrients, and a place in the sun. The result: poorer harvests.

To combat these undesirable plants efficiently, the large-scale use of herbicides is usually the only remedy at present, even though weeds do not always grow evenly throughout the field.

The result is that crops and arable soils are also sprayed with pesticides – and that can be bad for the environment.

Together with Bosch, we want to break new ground by combining different technologies. Our aim is that herbicides are only used where they are really needed,” Bayer head of digital farming, Tobias Menne, said.

Especially in the early phase of their growth, weeds are hard to identify.

Using camera sensors, the new smart spraying technology is able to differentiate between crops and weeds, and uses special application technology to target weeds with pesticides, thus reducing environmental impact.

“With smart spraying, we are bringing more intelligence to the fields,” Bosch’s Commercial Vehicles and Off-Road unit head, Johannes-Jorg Ruger, said.

“What sets it apart from previous systems in the market is that they only provide “green detection,” but cannot distinguish between crops and weeds.”

X marks the spot

Here is how it works: before farmers drive out to their fields, a digital “field manager” helps them to assess the situation in the field and recommends the best time to treat weeds.

In one step, weeds are precisely identified and pesticide is sprayed in a single process as the crop sprayer crosses the field.

Multiple cameras spread across the entire width of the crop sprayer take a continuous series of pictures, identifying the different weeds and allowing the optimum treatment to be defined.

While the crop sprayer is still crossing the field, the herbicide is sprayed in the required quantity and mixture using the appropriate application parameters.

While the relevant weeds are targeted, weedless areas remain untouched. All this occurs at lightning speed, within milliseconds.

“Smart spraying is a quantum leap in the fight against weeds,” Bayer’s digital farming unit head, Bjorn Kiepe, said.

“We are combining modern weed identification technology with the ability to apply different active substances as the situation demands. This process is very precise, with a spatial resolution of well under one meter. This will make it even easier for farmers to practice sustainable crop protection.”

Most importantly, the system takes account of pre-treatments, the interaction of different active substances, and the best possible degree of efficiency of the herbicides being used in order to prevent weeds from developing resistance.

The key focus areas in Bosch’s research are highly effective sensor technology, intelligent analysis procedures, and the selective spraying system.

In its partnership with Bosch, Bayer is applying the experience it has gained in the fields of geographic information systems (GIS) – including the development of algorithms as a basis for making agronomic decisions – integrated crop protection, formula technology, and application technology.

Source: Bosch