Mike Mackay has been a spraying contractor for many years, so when he saw a new spray technology hit the market he could see the positives for his business – but even he’s been amazed by what SenseSpray® has brought to his business.
SenseSpray’s green-on-brown spot-spraying technology employs cameras that detect green weeds on a soil or stubble background, and when a weed is detected, the system rapidly triggers individual nozzles to spray weeds with pinpoint accuracy.
Under a collaboration between Case IH and Australian technology company Agtecnic which developed the integrated weed control solution, SenseSpray has been incorporated into purpose-built kits that customers have the option of having fitted to new Case IH Patriot® 50 series sprayers before delivery.
“This really is technology that brings a new level of effectiveness and efficiency to a big issue for Australian farmers. To be able to offer the SenseSpray system on our Patriot 50 series sprayers is such an enormous opportunity for customers, who will not only find it game-changing for their weed control operations, but also very straight-forward to operate,” said Sean McColley, Case IH broadacre product specialist.
For Mike, who owns TraMac Contracting, based near Moree, the technology has brought big savings in both money and time for his business, which he’s had since 2005. He’s currently working for a client just outside Moree with 8000ha growing a range of crops, including cereals, legumes and cotton.
Mike has a long line of self-propelled sprayers with camera-based technology. He upgraded to a Case IH Patriot 4430 in 2017, then traded it for a Case IH Patriot 4450 12 months ago.
Mike says his Patriot 4430 served him well during the seven years he had it, rating the reliability and ease of maintenance as big pluses.
“The boom I loved. The Patriot, I never put the welder to the boom in the seven years I had it. And I don’t think it ever broke down,” he said.
But, he concedes his new Patriot 50 series sprayer has been a step up, describing it as “like driving a lounge chair”, with the airbag suspension “absolutely superb”. And the Aim Command Flex II technology that is available with it enabled him to take the spot-spraying technology to the next level.
At the time he was looking to upgrade to the Patriot 50 series sprayer, he also discovered SenseSpray was being launched in conjunction with Case IH at AgQuip, and he was immediately interested in the sophisticated technology it offered, and the potential benefits.
“I looked into it a bit further and thought ‘green on brown cameras, I really like that’. I’d had this kind of technology before but what I could do with it – and this was 15 years ago – was limited by height, so when the cameras couldn’t see the ground they just turned the solenoid on so it didn’t miss anything, but you just burned up a whole heap of chemical for not a great result,” Mike said. “I looked at SenseSpray and thought, ‘this is the way to go’.”
He contacted his local Case IH dealer, Kenway and Clark Moree, to request an upgraded boom with Aim Command Flex II technology to enable the installation of SenseSpray and he hasn’t looked back.
“I’m constantly surprised by what SenseSpray can achieve. I’m trying new things with it all the time to try to find its limits. It’s adaptable in terms of crops and conditions and I haven’t found anything yet that’s too hard for it,” Mike said.
“It’s also straightforward to use once you know what you’re doing and it takes about a minute to change the configuration in the cab from broadacre spraying to camera spraying – absolutely mindboggling.”
In terms of efficiency, SenseSpray can reduce chemical use by up to 90% by using product only where it’s needed, and eliminates product and water wastage to allow for the spraying of more hectares per tank. There’s also clear environmental benefits from only spraying where required.
A recent example, Mike said, of SenseSpray’s performance and efficiencies was in cotton stubble. There was 400ha of stubble that hadn’t been slashed due to weather, and it had shot, so Mike suggested utilising the SenseSpray cameras, even though the height of the regrowth was pushing the boundaries of the technology.
“I set the boom just above what was about metre-tall stubble, and then took into account a couple of other factors, so by the time we started spraying the cameras and solenoids were about 1.5m high. I thought it may not work, and I slowed my speed a bit to give the cameras the best chance, and we went through and it obliterated the regrowth cotton completely. Even that high in the air, they could still see the green,” Mike said.
He had a similar result in a couple of paddocks of chickpeas where the sprayer, thanks to the spot spraying technology, averaged 19% spraying time on one paddock and 23% on the second one, “a huge saving on chemical”.
“On a job I was doing the other week I averaged out at about 13%– so sprayed just 13% of the paddock. When you make up a load [of chemical] you work it out that if the whole boom comes on, it runs out at about 50ha. On that job I averaged about 260ha a load,” Mike said. “Instead of putting down broadacre [spraying] where you’re spraying dirt as well, I’m just spraying the weeds.
“The cameras are making me dollars and I couldn’t be happier.”
