Croplands and Greeneye trial green-on-green spot spraying in Australia

Major ag player, Croplands, has partnered with precision spraying technology provider, Greeneye Technology, to bring its AI-powered spot spraying system Down Under for field trials in South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales – and its potential goes far beyond the green-on-brown systems currently available.

Speaking with Farmmachinerysales, key executives from Greeneye, Croplands and chemical supplier Nufarm gave us a full rundown of the technology and shared how this innovative collaboration came to be. The team agreed unanimously on one thing: Australia is the ideal market for this technology.

It all started with a conversation in 2019 at Agritechnica in Hanover, Germany, when Croplands Portfolio Manager, Steve Norton, first engaged with Greeneye Technologies who presented a farm-ready system with serious potential for Australian growers.

“They wanted to deliver something to the farmer and we really like that level of thinking – that really built confidence within us that we were backing the right guys,” Norton said of the initial meeting.

The feeling was mutual, with Greeneye Technologies co-founder and CEO, Nadav Bocher, eager to pursue the Australian market which he says is the most mature market for precision spraying technology like his.

“We’ve been exclusively focused on the US market to date, and we’ve seen a lot of growth, but the Australian market is the most mature market globally as far as adopting precision applications, and Croplands is a market leader,” Bocher said.

“So from our perspective, we could not have found a better partner than Croplands for this market expansion.”

Fast-forward five years and the companies are gearing up to commence trials on Australian soil, with the help of Nufarm and support and funding from the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRCD), as they work to unlock the cost and environmental benefits of precision spraying for local farmers.

What sets the Greeneye system apart is that it’s capable of true green-on-green spraying, distinguishing weeds from crops with accuracy of 10x10 inches, proven so far in the US across crops like corn, soybean and it’s soon to be used for cotton too.

“When assessing which technologies to include in these trials, there were several features that stood out about the Greeneye system,” Norton said.

“First, it is a proven technology, having already firmly established itself in the U.S. market. Second, it is entirely machine agnostic, meaning it can be retrofitted onto farmers’ existing sprayers, overcoming a major cost-of-entry barrier. And third, it features a dual tank/line configuration that allows farmers to simultaneously broadcast residual herbicides while precisely spraying non-residual herbicides only on the weeds. We believe this will be a game changer in terms of improving sprayer operator efficiency.”

According to Bocher, the system typically pays for itself within 18 months based on a model that involves a one-off purchase and no ongoing fees, which is a genuine point of difference for Greeneye.

“Basically we have a one-off transaction fee that we charge our customers – there’s no subscription at all,” he said.

“So a farmer pays an initial amount, which includes our ongoing improvements to the technology, and typically we see an 18-month return on investment. We also recently published the savings we’ve accomplished for our US customers this past 2024 season – averaging an 87 per cent reduction of non-residual herbicides.”

NuFarm Green-on-Green Program Director, David Keetch, believes that a hidden benefit of the Greeneye system for Australian farmers is the versatility it offers with applications extending beyond herbicide use – proven in the US to work for other inputs like anti-fungals and micronutrients.

“It’s not just about cost savings, so less herbicide applied per hectare,” Keetch said.

“It may actually enable us to open the door to other possibilities that we could do on a larger scale. So whether that’s crop safety residues, because we’re only applying to a percentage of the paddock, or we can create herbicide registrations that enable us to tackle key weeds – even weeds that have resistance issues as well.

“We know Australia is a vast landscape of many different soil types and cropping systems, so this contract really does allow us to cover all those bases in a short period of time.”

The Greeneye system combines cutting-edge hardware with proprietary AI technology to identify and spray weeds during both pre- and post-emergence treatment with high levels of accuracy.

Greeneye’s system uses a dual-tank system and camera hardware that can turn any sprayer into a ‘smart machine’, using a dual-spraying setup to simultaneously spray contact herbicides on weeds and residual herbicides on a broadcast basis.

An array of cameras mounted on the sprayer boom capture high-resolution images of the field at a rate of 40 frames per second, enabling the rapid detection and precise classification of weeds right down to the species level. 

The information captured is fed back to the system’s graphics processing units, which calculate the exact amount of herbicide required and signal the appropriate nozzles to open, spraying only the weeds.

While the system is making hundreds of decisions each second, the entire process takes milliseconds to execute and can be carried out at travel speeds of 24km/h, negating any speed-related productivity losses compared to broadcast spraying.

According to Croplands, the system is initially targeted at a 36-metre boom but the company is also considering a smaller 24-metre pull behind a completely autonomous vehicle in the near future – further enhancing the productivity of the system by combining it with autonomous machines.

The team was adamant it didn’t want to rush to market with the Greeneye system, instead doing its due diligence to assess the suitability and scope of uses. However, the team said farmers can expect to see the technology at Field Days from 2027.

“As per the GRDC milestones, in 2027 we’ll be looking at getting involved in Field Days across the country, and demonstrating the products in use across all the regions,” Keetch said.

The key with these trials is managing expectations, Norton reiterates, which is why Croplands is putting the system to the test across a range of crop types and with a range of chemical applications to make sure it stacks up.

“We have to be careful about managing what we commit to being able to do successfully, so that we don’t oversell a machine’s capabilities in fungicide or a particular crop,” he said.

“We want to bring it to market very responsibly, because we know it’s then going to be picked up very, very fast.”

According to Norton, there are a lot of systems that promise the world and charge a hefty fee, but Croplands aims to offer a transparent return on investment for farmers. After all, it’s the model of honesty and quality that’s formed the backbone of Cropland’s success so far.

“Looking around the industry, there’s some very large costs that are talked about when they’re talking green-on-brown, some at $2 per acre and some at $8 per acre, which are some pretty significant dollar values and that will really set us apart with the product because there are no subscriptions,” he said.

“We were very successful with spot spraying so far because when you bring it to Australia, as long as you are realistic with what you're doing and you're transparent with what it can and can't do, Australian farmers pick up this new technology 10 times faster – so the market will grow very fast.”