Goldacres to offer spot spraying tech

A unique spot spraying system utilising artificial intelligence to identify weed in fallow soil will soon be available with Goldacres’ range of sprayers as an option.

The system, named Weedetect, was developed by French tech company Bilberry which has recently set up a base in Australia to service local manufacturers and customers.

Unlike conventional spot spraying systems that use optical technology and sensors to detect the presence of chlorophyll in weeds, the Weedetect consists of a series of cameras and calculation modules which work together to detect the presence of weeds. Once a weed is detected, the camera system ‘orders’ the sprayer to only open certain nozzles along the boom to just spray the weed.

The way the system achieves that is through constant feeding of information, algorithms and images by the team at Bilberry which allows the cameras to differentiate between weed and crop.

This not only allows the system to target weeds in fallow soil but also in crops which conventional optical spot spraying technology is yet to achieve.

At the moment, the Weedetect fallow spraying (green on brown) technology is available to order with Goldacres sprayers while the in crop (green on green) technology will be made available later in the year, Goldacres said.

“On each machine on a 36m boom, we'll have 12 cameras with 12 of the calculation modules and they are what actually look at and detect the weeds,” said Goldacres product specialist, Dave Tuppen.

“From there, they feed the information into a switch port and via that into a display, which does all the workings out of what is and what isn't a weed.”

Goldacres said it will be integrating the Weedetect system with its Raven Rate Control Module to ensure a simple operation for farmers.

“We want to maintain that simplicity within our machines and not get too technical at that end. And we will just have this new system integrate with what we've got now,” Tuppen said.

“That way, customers can either do a blanket spray or go spot spraying simply by turning the display on or off.”

According to Goldacres, customers can expect up to 95 per cent accuracy rate with the Weedetect, meaning significant savings in chemical, water and operation cost.

“Apart from that, it's great for the environment as less chemical we're putting out there, the better it's going to be for the environment,” Tuppen said.

Goldacres will make the Weedetect available on its self-propelled sprayer range first and will move on to incorporating it on its trailed sprayers.

The company is still working on a price for the camera system but said it will be very competitive with other systems on the market.