Green on green spot spraying provides cost savings to croppers battling weeds

After gaining considerable crop chemical savings, improved weed control and operational productivity, WA Mid West grower Kade Mutter is unequivocal about green-on-green spot spraying.

“One hundred per cent, I would get it straight away because of the savings,” Mr Mutter said.

Mr Mutter farms with his family near Three Springs, growing wheat, canola and barley and managing chemical fallow areas.

Like most growers, he has been battling annual ryegrass, which has become difficult to control due to herbicide resistance, as well as wild radish which was also a major weed concern.

He said the green-on-green spot spray technology was mainly used against the radish and some volunteer canola and blue lupins, as well as for green-on-brown weed control in between seasons.

The Mutters had the Bilberry Intelligent Spot Spraying System installed across the 48m Pommier boom mounted on their Miller Nitro 7380 sprayer after using it on a previous sprayer.

The system uses an embedded camera network, artificial intelligence and deep learning software to identify weeds, and is controlled via an intuitive user interface through display screens in sprayer cabs.

Bilberry’s weed recognition applications have been constantly evolving to ensure specific weeds were precisely targeted with the appropriate herbicide in real time.

Trials have shown a minimum hit and kill rate of 80 per cent, as well as chemical savings of up to 90 per cent.

“Savings are the key these days and we have found them to be pretty good,” Mr Mutter said.

“Normally (with blanket spraying) you will be spraying flat out and going to fill-up all the time.

“It’s pretty good to just cruise around and see what is being hit, and what’s not, and you are not wasting your money into thin air.”

As a result, he said the ability to then use high chemical rates helped to significantly improve weed control.

“Sometimes you can be spraying up to 40 litres per hectare in a patch and in other patches there might be none — it doesn’t go much higher than 40-50L/ha,” Mr Mutter said.

“We normally go with a water rate of 100L/ha with the Bilberry, which allows us to have a low-down pressure with the system we have got, so we can put out big droplets and know we are going to hit the target with a fine mist behind it.”

He said the green-on-green spot spraying also resulted in strong productivity benefits and had not altered their normal spraying operation.

“The time between refills is once a day or every day-and-a-half depending on how many weeds you are spraying,” he said.

“You can cover 300-400ha in a day because you are not having to stop.

“With the big boom, we tend to only spray at about 20km/h anyway and the cameras can do just fine at that.”

The cameras needed to be set at the correct height and calibrated, and auto-height control on the boom spray was handy especially for undulating ground.

The installation of the Bilberry weed identification system incorporated 13 nozzles per camera that feed back to a couple of node boxes and through to the display in the cab.

Growers pay a subscription to the Bilberry Intelligent Spot Spraying System either per hectare or on an annual basis with unlimited hectares, which includes all software updates and performance improvements.