Working with universities
Exchanging knowledge and providing technical solutions
WEED-IT is very keen on sharing and exchanging knowledge and information on how to fulfil agricultural as well as societal needs for more sustainable food production. Fundamental research on this is often performed by specialised universities and institutions. WEED-IT supports such research wherever and whenever possible.
In fact, WEED-IT originates from a research project at Wageningen University and Research (WUR), in The Netherlands. We are still actively exchanging knowledge and knowhow with WUR to help them with their research challenges such as the Next Fruit 4.0 project in cooperation with the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission (part of Washington State University). The Next Fruit 4.0 project is concentrated on precision fruit farming and is investigating how applications can be performed more efficiently using among others PWM technology and high-precision prescription maps. Apart from this, we work in close cooperation with many renowned international agricultural universities and agronomists around the world.
Opportunities for interns and theses
When it comes to knowledge transfer, WEED-IT not only invests in knowhow and technology stacks. We engage in numerous internship and thesis opportunities for (mostly technical) high school and university students from Wageningen University and from other universities. Many of the interns and graduates choose to enrol in their first job at WEED-IT and most engineers not only grew up on a farm, they are graduates from Wageningen University as well.
Smart technology for soybean production (Brazil/Netherlands)
In this project, Brazilian and Dutch public and private partners work together on the development and implementation of technologies and know how to develop smart soybean production. WEED-IT is one of the private partners involved in this project headed by the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) and Wageningen University. Other project partners include among others Bioscope, Embrapa, Hiber, Stara and Syngenta Crop Protection. WEED-IT heads two so-called work packages in this research cooperation.
In work package 1, several algorithms for green-on-green applications WEED-IT Spot in Crop are investigated. Work package 4 investigates the use of variable rate application (VRA) for end-of season desiccation in soybeans. In 2023, it was found that major savings in herbicide usage for end-of-season desiccation in soybeans can be reached if WEED-IT is used to apply the herbicide based on the amount of living biomass present in the soybean canopy (crop density):
- Very high savings are expected compared to an average blanket application rate of 1.3 l/ha
- Two days after spraying, the water content of the crop was higher in the desiccated treatments compared to the control treatments
Chipping weeds mechanically (Australia)
The past four years, WEED-IT has been involved in the ‘mechanical weed chipper’ research project from the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the University of Sydney (USYD). The project, funded by institutions such as the Grains Research and Development Corporation, resulted in the development of the so-called tactical tillage machine (video). A new machine intended to be used over summer as part of an integrated weed management system. The tactical tillage machine relies on WEED-IT’s Power of Fluorescence to detect individual weeds. That weed is then targeted by individually operated hydraulic tines that physically chip the weed out of the ground.
A new prototype of the weed chipper is under development with input from our business partner Rometron Australia. The research has also been awarded with the most outstanding paper for publications in the Weed Technology journal.
Reduction of crop protection products applications and costs (Brazil)
Researchers from the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS) and the University of Estado de Mato Grosso (UNEMAT) conducted a study to quantify the reduction of crop production products applied to soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) and maize (Zea mays L.) crops in several stages of the production cycle using a site-specific spraying application based on real-time (WEED-IT) sensors in the Brazilian Cerrado region.
The researchers acknowledged that site-specific application of pesticides currently focuses on herbicides mainly while the same technique can be used for other pesticides, such as fungicides. The spraying operations during the Brazilian were therefore performed not only for herbicide, but also for fungicide and insecticides applications.
Main conclusions
The extensive study took place during two years based on 721 spray applications over 3,702 hectares of land on two farms in Mineiros (Goiás) where conventional spraying was compared with precision spraying with real-time sensors. They not only took the reduction of crop protection products into account, but also the effects on crop yield as well as overall costs by means of performing an economic analysis. The researchers’ main conclusions were as follows:
- In the soybean crop, the variability on reduced pesticide usage ranged from 12 to 96%
- Desiccation and pre-planting applications showed the highest averages of pesticide reduction, being close to 76% and 72%, respectively
- In the maize crop, this variability on reduced pesticide usage ranged from 17 to 85%
- Only in post-emergence stage of the maize crop
- When taking the annual conditions for crop growth into account, it can be inferred that the yield of soybean and maize crops was not affected directly by applying the site-specific spraying technology
- After adding all costs together, the conventional application by total area spraying was noted to have a cost per hectare of US$418.71. Whereas the use of the site-specific spray application with WEED-IT resulted in a cost per hectare of US$183.50, corresponding to a reduction of 56.16%
- Which means that the cost reduction achieved using this technology was 2.3 times lower than the cost associated with pesticide application over the entire area using a conventional sprayer
Get in touch
Do you have any questions about our products? Need advice on effective weed control? Or perhaps you’d like to share your experiences? Whatever inquiry you have, we’re here to assist you. Just drop us a line, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.