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The system makes thousands of decisions in real time, targeting individual weeds while leaving bare ground untouched.
Developed in Australia and launched in 2021, John Deere’s See & Spray Select System uses camera-based green-on-brown technology to identify living green plant matter in fallow paddocks and apply herbicide only where it is needed.
This means that instead of treating an entire paddock, the system makes thousands of decisions in real time, targeting individual weeds while leaving bare ground untouched.
The concept sounds simple, but its implications are significant. The recently achieved milestone of more than 10 million acres being treated using the technology across Australia is not simply a measure of area covered, but firm evidence precision agriculture is moving from promise to practice.
In an environment shaped by rising input costs, herbicide resistance, labour pressures and increasingly complex sustainability expectations, growers are constantly looking for ways to be more efficient with every decision they make. Targeted spraying has emerged as one of the clearest examples of this shift.
Across the 10 million acres treated in Australia to date, growers have achieved average herbicide savings of 74%, at a time when input costs remain under pressure, those savings represent a meaningful contribution to farm profitability. Every litre of herbicide that is not applied is a litre that doesn’t need to be purchased, transported, stored or handled, while the technology supports environmental responsibility by reducing unnecessary inputs.
The milestone also provides a glimpse into where agriculture is heading next, with See & Spray Generation 2 launched earlier this year and available on MY27 400 and 600 Series Sprayers. This will deliver green-on-green capability to help farmers apply only exactly what’s needed, across more hectares and across an expanded range of crops.
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