Deere highlights updated sprayer technology

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — A next generation of See & Spray technology was featured during the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association’s Midwest Ag Industries Exposition.

John Deere’s new technology for model year 2027 expands targeted application across more crops with enhanced precision ag tools to help farmers apply exactly what’s needed and where it’s needed, as well as a crop scouting tool.

“The new technology set includes higher-resolution cameras for better visibility for detecting weeds in the field, new vision processing units for higher processing power and our front-mounted cameras to help the system identify targets sooner and improve the savings that we can see occur throughout the field,” said Zach Becker, John Deere See & Spray product manager.

John Deere’s expanded See & Spray technology now enables targeted application across a wider range of crops, including wheat, barley, canola, sugar beets and edible beans, as well as corn and soybeans.

With real-time weed detection and treatment, farmers gain the flexibility to adapt weed control strategies by crop and field conditions, maintaining effective weed control while optimizing input use, protecting profitability and supporting long-term agronomic outcomes.

“We also have variable-rate capabilities with See & Spray Gen 2 where we can detect biomass as we move throughout the field and change the rate based on the biomass as we move through that field,” Becker said.

“See & Spray variable rate has the capability to be used for fungicide, nutrient application and harvest aid application. So, for a lot of your small grains, we’ll see some of these applications. We’re detecting the crop biomass, and we’re changing the rate based on the needs of that crop.

“For example, for higher areas of crop biomass, we may need more product for especially a fungicide application, but other areas may be drowned-out spots or areas more affected by droughts. Maybe you don’t need as much product there, and so it’s reducing the amount of product that we’re putting down in those areas based on label requirements.”

Scouting

The new software technology features See & Scout capabilities to provide agronomic insights to what’s happening across the field.

“This is our ability to get field-level insights across the field using that See & Spray cameras, no matter if we’re See & Spraying or we’re in broadcast,” Becker said.

“This is going to give us weed pressure maps, whether we’re broadcasting or See & Spraying. It’s also going to give us crop canopy maps and stand count analysis. So, we can detect that level of emergence in corn as we move throughout the field, giving us more insights and more data that we can make decisions on later on in the cropping season.”

Development

Launched in 2021, See & Spray was initially designed to only apply herbicides where weeds grew in a field. Its capabilities have since expanded to other applications.

“It’s been a growth and a journey in See & Spray. We started off by green-on-brown capabilities of targeting just weeds in a fallow field, and then it grew into targeting weeds in corn, soybean and cotton crops. We’ve now expanded into the additional crops as well and further capabilities,” Becker said.

“That’d be your variable-rate capabilities and being able to see input savings in fungicide, harvest aids, nutrient applications, to name a few of the types. Also, it’s not only the input savings that you can see, but ensuring you’re putting the right rate, at the right place, at the right time and getting that prescription-like accuracy all the way across the field, but more near real time based on the conditions of the crop at that time.”

The variable application rates are based on the living biomass of the crop it detects.

“It is crop agnostic. So, it can work in any crop for See & Spray variable rate. It’s looking for living biomass out there in the field, and the more biomass it detects, it can put down higher rates versus the less biomass it detects, it can put down lower rates,” Becker said.

“You can do vice versa, as well. If you want to put higher rates of nutrients, for example, on the crop that needed to catch up to the crop surrounding it, you can also do that.”