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Press Release
September 22, 2003
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Related Contact:
Bruce Lewis
NTech Industries, Inc.
1-707-964-3844
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Weedseeker New Weapon in No Till Weed Battle
Wheat Farmers in Oregon and Australia Employ Sensors To Control Invasive Weeds
Ukiah, Calif. - Farmer Jason Hill and his father, Fritz, have been in the fight of their lives. The villain: Russian Thistle and other weeds choking 3,500 acres of dormant wheat and canola fields in Pendleton, a farming area in eastern Oregon.
But the Hills are making big gains because of a new weapon in their arsenal: WeedSeeker Automatic Spot Spray System. WeedSeeker uses advanced optics and computer circuitry to sense the presence of a weed and signal a spray nozzle to deliver a precise amount of herbicide, without spraying bare soil. The sensors are mounted on a 60 foot sprayer. They drive across their fields at 10 miles per hour and WeedSeeker handles the rest.
Huge Weeds
"WeedSeeker is being used in rescue mode right now," explained Jason Hill, who helps manage the 8,000-acre Hill Farm. "The weeds are huge; the worse I've seen in a long time. Russian Thistle is a serious problem. With WeedSeeker, we're saving money by cutting overall chemicals needed and reducing the need to reapply them."
Hill notes he has been using about 1.2 gallons of product per acre with WeedSeeker compared with 33 gallons he would have needed with his broadcast spray equipment. "We put on so much chemical, because we were having trouble killing Russian thistle with normal rates. WeedSeeker allows us to gain control over plants that otherwise would have gone unaffected by our chemical. My cost is $4.95 an acre with WeedSeeker versus $136.32 an acre with my old broadcast sprayer. We could not afford to use those rates in a conventional sprayer, " he calculated. "The savings, $132 an acre over 3,500 acres, is $460,000. We'd have gone bankrupt at $136 an acre."
Australia Fallow Fight
Half way across the world, David Brownhill of Merrilong Pastoral Company, is fighting a similar weed war on his 12,000-acre farm on the Liverpool Plains of Australia.
Since commissioning WeedSeeker in August 2002, Merrilong has sprayed 4,110 hectares (2.47 acres per hectare) and reduced chemical use 82.5 per cent, according to Brownhill, who purchased WeedSeeker last year with the help of a government grant. "The water saving of 135,200 liters is also significant when relying on collected rainwater." He estimates his savings at more than $50,000 AUD (about $34,000U.S.).
Merrilong is 4,800 hectares (approximately 12,000 acres) with 3,800 hectares (nearly 9,400 acres) growing durum wheat, bread wheat, fava beans, chick peas, barley, sorghum, sunflowers, summer legumes and irrigated corn. The crop sequence rotates from winter to winter, summer to winter and winter to summer, all with different fallow lengths, different weed densities, and different spray activities. For example, wheat following sorghum has a fallow length of 15 months, with 7-8 spray applications, and glysophate application rates of between 400 mls/hectare to 2 l/hectare.
Zero-Till Strategy
The farm is managed under a zero-till system, with cultivation only used as a last resort. Some fields on the farm have been zero-till for 13 years, which Brownhill says makes him heavily reliant on herbicides "to manage fallows."
After seeing Brownhill's results, two more Australian farm operations have purchased WeedSeeker systems for fallow field weed control.
WeedSeeker Background
"WeedSeeker is used around the world for precision application of herbicides and pesticides," said John Mayfield, president of NTech Industries, manufacturer of WeedSeeker. Applications include weed elimination from vineyards, orchards, cotton, other farm crops, city streets, military bases and railroad right of ways."
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), researchers at Oklahoma State University, and the U.S. Military tested WeedSeeker and confirmed rates of up to 80% reduction in herbicide.
Since the WeedSeeker uses an internal light source, which emits thousands of infrared and near infrared beams per second, spraying can take place at night when calm weather minimizes chemical drift. This extends the operating day and into the night which lessens chemical volatility.
NTech Industries, headquartered in Ukiah, California, is the world leader in optical sensors for agricultural research, precision fertilizer applications, and weed and pest control for farm, military and civilian uses. NTech products represent break-through technology with important revenue generation and environmental benefits.
Information on the company and its products are available on the Internet at www.ntechindustries.com.
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