Let’s kick things off in Eagle, Wis., where a longtime no-tiller is putting new technology to the test.

Tyler Troiola used John Deere See & Spray Premium for the first time. The retrofit kit uses 36 cameras and machine learning to selectively target spray weeds.

Troiola used it on corn at 10 inches, 14 inches and 18 inches. When corn was 10 inches tall, he says See & Spray only sprayed about 18% of the field, which adds up to over 80% in herbicide savings. It went down to about 70% savings on 14-inch-tall corn, and 60% savings on 18-inch-tall corn.

Troiola also used See & Spray on soybeans planted in 7.5-inch spacing, 15-inch spacing and 30-inch spacing. The jury’s still out on the ROI, but he says it worked best on 30-inch soybeans, with about 30% herbicide savings.

Before spraying, Troiola placed water sensitive paper next to several weeds to test the accuracy of the system. And as you can see here, as signified by the purple spots on the paper, See & Spray was able to see and spray even the smallest weeds in heavy residue.  Overall, Troiola’s encouraged by the results.

“On corn, it kind of worked as advertised. On average, our corn, we sprayed about 20% of the field. Beans, from what I’ve seen, some fields it sprayed 80-85% of the field. Obviously, that’s 10-15% savings. But when you’re paying a subscription fee every acre, are you really saving anything?

“How will it work in residue? We planted into huge rye. I found that as long as the rye was dead, the system seemed to work in it because I think it must distinguish color as well. I was pretty skeptical of how it would work in our heavy residue systems, and it seemed to work.

“Overall, I think it has a fit. That doesn’t mean we’re just going to put the blinders on and just stick with it. It’s going to take a lot of analyzing and running the numbers to make sure it does work. Where we sit right now, in the middle heat of it, I’m happy with what I’ve seen so far.”

Tyler says the biggest savings might be on time — not having to stop and reload the tank mix was a huge benefit. And he says his tank mix for soybeans is more expensive than corn, so even with just a 15% herbicide savings, it might be worth it. Time will tell, when he crunches the numbers. We’ll introduce more cutting-edge sprayer technology later in the program, stay tuned.

Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.