Precision Planting is entering the sprayer technology market, with the unveiling of several products focused on improving the sprayer operation and data collection.
The company, known for its planting technology, made the announcement at its annual winter conference Jan. 18 at the company’s headquarters in Tremont, Illinois.
To start, Precision is planning to offer a retrofit kit for priming and recirculating sprayer booms, with field testing continuing on a nozzle pressure control system, and a camera system for guidance, scouting and weed identification.
The company notes with traditional sprayers, operators must spray product to the ground to fully prime the width of the boom, which can result in more than 50 gallons of product being sprayed, resulting in a high concentration of chemical in that spot. Precision says its ReClaim boom priming and recirculation system is designed to circulate tank contents through the booms and back to the tank, never having to spray a drop of chemical to the ground.
“ReClaim uses a single rocker switch in the cab to engage recirculation, and once recirculation is completed, farmers are ready to spray with the correctly mixed chemical across the entire boom,” said Justin McMenamy, director of product, Precision Planting. “ReClaim is designed to be retrofit onto a farmer’s existing sprayer with electric or standard nozzles.”
The company says its Symphony nozzle control system is designed to maintain constant pressure across the boom when changing rates or speed, and will be field tested again in the spring of 2022. It’s controlled by the Precision Planting Gen3 20|20 system.
The third and final part of the announcement focused on a camera system that will also be field tested in the spring of 2022. The company says it sees multiple applications for the system, including steering the sprayer between crop rows, counting plant stands and collecting data on emergence, and weed identification, enabling targeted spraying.
“The combination of vision and Symphony will allow spray rates to be varied within the label rate to be effective against the weed pressure in a specific area,” said Jason Stoller, Vision product manager, Precision Planting. “We know that a high percentage of sprayer passes use a residual herbicide, so targeting only growing weeds does not allow for the value of the residual herbicide to be present in the field. We are actively researching the best way to spot spray growing weeds while at the same time laying down a blanket residual herbicide in order to control emerging weeds, all using the 20|20, Symphony and Vision technologies.”
