Use of Information Technologies for Precision Crop Protection

Today methods of applying agents are characterised by using liquids with water as carrier for distribution on the plot. The liquid is mixed with one or more agents in the required mixture with a constant concentration and distributed by nozzles on the target area. Precision plant protection requires a higher consideration of occurrence of weeds in the plots to apply specific agents on weed locations. Directly injecting agents into the carrier means adding the agent into the outgoing water flow. Different systems have already been launched and are being used in agriculture in a few cases. Characteristic for these systems is the injection of agents in the tube system before the sprayer boom. The main disadvantage is a high reaction times until the required metering is adjusted. The project aims at the development of a system with injection of agents in the nozzle which promises less reaction time and thus higher accuracy in spot application. The entire system will rest upon sensor systems for online detection of weeds or mapping of weeds via GIS. The development of the latter is part of another project within the college. An optical sensor system based on image processing with a CCD camera is an approach which has been followed by a group of researchers in the Department of Agronomy in recent years and is to apply on spot spraying.