Variable Rate Spraying [Farmer]

Introduction

Variable rate technology (VRT ) is used for the application of various agricultural inputs in order to respond adequately to the within-field variability of environmental factors like soil properties, incidence of pests and crop parameters^[1].

In agricultural crop production, indiscriminate application of herbicides leads to environmental pollution and reduced quality of the agricultural products. Variable-rate herbicide spraying (VRHS) technology can provide a solution to this problem as it can precisely adjust the application rates. It can lead towards minimal farmland pollution, safety of agricultural products and personnel, and sustainable development of agriculture. VRHS systems can either use real-time machine vision to generate the weed map or use predetermined prescription maps. The VRHS system based on prescription chart usually uses sensing in conjunction with Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) technology for the generation of prescription chart.^[2]

Figure 1. Concept drawing of a real-time robotic weed control system for tomato crops ^[3]

Figure 2. An example of an pesticide application map^[4]

Related Scientific Paper

Variable Rate Herbicide Application Using GPS and Generating a Digital Management Map^[5]

In this paper the researchers developed a precision method of variable rate application (VRA) for the application of cyanazine pre-emergence herbicide.

For this purpose a digital management map is generated using the global positioning system (GPS). This system is based on GPS data for positioning of sprayer, comparing the GPS data with digital management map data, measuring of speed, and finally injection of active ingredient inside carrier fluid using solenoid injectors proportionate to any management zone on the digital management map.