On our way to precision spraying in soybean crops

Together with several partners, WEED-IT is involved in an international project for the development and implementation of technologies and know-how for smart soybean production.

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During the four-year project, four main smart farming topics related to soybean production, weed management, pest and disease control and past and in-season data are being investigated. This includes accessing the potential of soybean variable rate desiccation and finding the best configurations for our WEED-IT Quadro fluorescence technology for Green-on-Green applications in soybean crops.

On the trail fields of the project leader, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in The Netherlands, representative trial field circumstances were created in order to gather the most comprehensive data sets.

Two varieties and volunteer maize

On the Wageningen trail fields, two varieties of soybean were sown in 18 different plots. In each of the plots, maize plants were sown as well. These maize plants represent the volunteer maize plants that typically are present in soybean fields and therefore are considered as weeds. Every plot has different weed densities and with this, we can gather representative data sets under different circumstances.

To get these data sets, a special data acquisition kit is being used. This kit is connected to a single WEED-IT sensor on the spray boom of the sprayer and measures the raw signal of the WEED-IT sensor in a very high resolution. To mark the weeds in the soybean canopy, reflection bars are used. Later this year, we intend to repeat the trails in Brazil at the premises of the other scientific project partner, the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM). And next year, the potential of soybean variable rate desiccation will also be investigated in Brazil.

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