Open Weed Locator - Part One

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

One big advancement in agricultural equipment in recent years has been see-and-spray technology. Early adopters are decreasing their chemical costs by only applying it where necessary. But the equipment is not cheap and very few farmers are currently using it. A new open source project has been created to develop low cost site-specific weed control technology. William Salter is one of the creators of the OpenWeedLocator project, otherwise known as OWL.

Salter… “With any site-specific weed control unit, you're going to get cost savings in the long run in terms of chemical usage. And you'll be more environmentally friendly as a result as well. And so educating the farmers about site-specific weed control will have those benefits, but it will also open a new world to them where they can build their own equipment and fix it and customize it themselves as well.”

This open source approach lends itself to the independent nature of many farmers.

Salter… “Growers tend to be very good with her hands, but with these new technologies, I guess we do face the problem of going that same way that you've got this black box that you stick on your sprayer, and if it breaks, then you're at the mercy of a company to fix it.”

Tune in tomorrow for more information about the OpenWeedLocator project.