Can artificial intelligence reduce herbicides sprayed on crops?
Nathan Boyd, a weed scientist and horticultural sciences professor at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, seeks to deploy smart sprayers to slash herbicide use in tomatoes.
The research team at the university’s Gulf Coast Research and Education Center evaluated a precision spraying system that researchers designed to penetrate holes created by the research team in plastic mulch and reach the soil.
While plastic mulch is popular in vegetable growing, growers traditionally apply herbicides to the top of the soil bed before installing the plastic mulch, which leads to non-targeted applications.
“This equipment applies herbicide on the soil wherever there is a hole in the plastic, because that is the only place that weeds can emerge rather than over the entire bed top,” Boyd told the university.
The research team discovered the “AI smart sprayer” found the punched holes 86% of the time, which equates to more than 90% savings in herbicides used in tomato fields at the research center.
“We are only applying herbicides into holes in the plastic mulch, which means far less herbicide use. This is pretty dramatic,” Boyd told the university. “The purpose of our technology is to develop a way to apply herbicide only where weeds can emerge — in the planting hole — rather than the entire bed top.”
Boyd said the next step for the research is to look at how growers can incorporate it on farms.
“Further research is needed to assess the economic implications of herbicide reductions and evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the technology,” Boyd told the university.
