Predicting Weed Hot Spots

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Farm data can paint a picture of what happened on the farm in the past, but how do we use it to predict future problems before they happen? In the case of weed management, Greg Stewart and his team at Geco Strategic Weed Management have developed a system to predict where the weed problems are going to happen before the season even starts.

Stewart… “What would end up happening is you would come to me and say that you wanted your, your field analyzed and a prescription for it. And we would find all of the imagery for it, build a field boundary. We would run that analysis. We would show you what the weeds have looked like over the last five years. And then we would make a prediction about where the weeds are going to emerge in this coming year and then provide you with the, just the simple prescription file, usually a shape file that gets dropped into your equipment. The farm typically decides what the action will be. So we don't decide say which herbicide or the dosage, right? So, but those maps typically are used in herbicide applications, whether it's liquid or granular. And we do a lot of work with residual herbicides and soil-applied herbicides, right? So there's, there's very, very, very little targeted application of those already. And we're also seeing people use us in preceding rates, either the cover crop or the main crop. Weed control is not about silver bullets. It's about you're trying to take coordinated and changing action, right, to these things. Otherwise, you know, weeds are pretty quick to adapt and will develop a resistance if you do the same thing over and over.”

Geco currently works with farmers and agronomists across North America.