How much would you bet about the efficacy of your sprayer?
Winning back control over it is now possible with the newest solution from FieldView: the Spray Kit
Uneven crop protection is a waste of high-priced inputs and expose crops to yield losses. The real application efficacy of non-ISOBUS sprayers remains a question mark for most farmers, who struggles with answering to the question: how can I be sure that I am applying the same rate homogeneously across different sections?
Prior to consider changing equipment, proper sprayer maintenance can be an underrated quick win to improve spraying efficacy at low cost. Discover how the FieldView Spray Kit enables farmers to re-gain full control over their spraying activities, providing the needed answers to enhance the return of investment (on both inputs and the sprayer itself).
Crop health is increasingly under the spotlight because of the climate changes, the rapid adaptation of pests and diseases to them while new threats appear, active ingredients are lost due to safety and environmental reasons and reduced efficacy due to spreading resistance to them. Worldwide, an estimated 20-40% of crop yield is lost to pests and diseases.
Addressing these challenges implies an integrated approach, made of proper monitoring of crop evolution and weather conditions to define if and when spraying, choosing the appropriate active ingredient while rotating them to avoid resistance and being precise in the in-field application, making sure the right amount of product achieve the target. Whilst it comes at the end of the list, the efficacy of the work done by the sprayer pays a high value to grant the successful protection of the crop.
Do you really know how much of your product is being applied to the crop?
If the answer is yes, you probably have an ISOBUS sprayer with individual nozzle control…or are unconsciously overestimating your answer.
Today, almost 60% boom sprayers of European farmers are not equipped with any technology that allows for spraying monitoring nor recording, so being aware of whether the sprayer is applying the rate you wanted to spray is rather a guess or own perception. Not certainly an objective, data-supported knowledge.
While transitioning to a digitally ready equipment would definitely solve the headache, accessing a brand-new sprayer might not be affordable to every pocket. So, is this the end word for all those farmers?
Reaching homogeneous application is possible, even if it’s not ISOBUS
A partial solution to the problem would be actually already available to any farmer: calibration of nozzles of the sprayer. But as we all know we’d have to regularly make sure that the pressure of our car tires is adequate, we wouldn’t precisely know when it’s time to inflate them if we hadn’t a system that alert us about it. Similarly, regular maintenance of the sprayer and the nozzles is a recommended best practice, however it still doesn’t allow to know whether since last time you did it, you are really applying the rate you wanted to. And that simple guessing can actually cost a lot.
Securing the health of your crop is a one-shot opportunity. So, betting and hoping that your sprayer is doing the job properly can't suffice. You would need to take back full control over what’s happening when you’re spraying.
Therefore, having the possibility to real-time monitor how the sprayer is working can be the key and the FieldView Spray Kit has been built to give that opportunity to any farmer, despite their pocket size, before deciding the time to invest in a new sprayer has come.
A real case of how the Spray Kit helped a farmer to improve spraying efficacy
Early morning, spring is fast approaching on a wheat field, it’s time to manage weeds. We asked the farmer about his perception on the precision of his sprayer to apply the desired rate and he readily confirmed it was all working well until then. As he was open to allow us proving it and curious about that strange combination of cables and sensors we were carrying, we quickly installed the Spray Kit on his 19 meters working width boom sprayer. Just a few hours later, heading to the field, he started spraying the first rows. A phone call comes in. It’s the farmer, straight from the cabin. While working, the live mapping and real-time monitoring of each boom section performed by the FieldView Spray Kit, was showing that compared to the target rate, the real rate applied by the sprayer diverged by 46%! Better double checking what the map was showing, he told us. After a quick test with the INNOQUEST SC-2 nozzle tester, what was captured by the flowmeters of the kit got uncontrovertibly confirmed.
Such a discover made the farmer promptly react and making his mind around the need of realizing an immediate equipment maintenance, even if he wasn’t planning it at that moment nor expecting any issue with his sprayer for the season.
“Luckily, I only sprayed a few rows! If I had continued, I would have sprayed half of the product needed or doubled the rate.”
So, he promptly cleaned the filters and nozzles and afterwards got back to the field. This time, the live FieldView Spray Kit mapping and monitoring of the sprayer revealed that the timely intervention had paid off: the boom sprayer was finally applying 7 times more homogeneously than before.
With a cost-effective solution like the FieldView Spray Kit, the farmer could therefore win back full control on his sprayer performance, preventing a waste of high-priced input while ensuring optimal crop protection. And establishing a longer relationship with his sprayer.
Learn more about the Spray Kit and how it works here
