New spot spraying technology for tree crops and vines

South Australian startup Agtech By Design was co-founded in 2020 by Ben Pankhurst and Zane Sheffield. Zane grew up as a grower in Riverland, South Australia, on his family’s vineyard and farm. Over the past three years he worked on the WeedSelector. Agtech By Design expects it will be commercially available by the end of June.The startup set out to build a versatile targeted sprayer, designed for use behind tractor trailers, three-point hitches or Unmanned Ground Vehicles. The company can retrofit the system to any existing sprayer.

“Burro AI is one of the autonomous robots we will attach our system to, as well as potentially the XAG R150”, CEO Zane Sheffield of Agtech By Design says. “We have designed it to be a modular system, so we can build the sprayer ourselves or attach it to any existing sprayer. It depends on the use case. What the grower wants to do.”

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Green on green

Agtech By Design will release a green on brown spot spraying technology, which identifies all the weeds, and is also developing a product called SpeciesSelect, which is a green on green spot spraying technology that can identify individual species of weed.

By designing its AI in-house, the company controls its development process, and is not relying on expensive third-party AI models, Zane says. The company aims to pass the savings on to growers.

Not a lot of competition

According to Zane, there are a few other weed spraying systems available in Australia in horticulture. “In the orchard crops, we are one of the first in Australia. That means there is not a lot of competition for us. There are smaller type autonomous robots that do spraying, but they are not as technological advanced as we are. We can offer growers a large number of options.“

“There are a lot of weed seeking technologies that use chlorophyll sensors. We use an AI vision system. We can work throughout the day and night. We are not impacted by lighting conditions. The use chlorophyll sensors can be prone to failure in dark settings.”

“Orchards use cover crops to increase nutrients in the soil and to keep the temperature in the orchard low. With our green on green system, growers will be able to keep cover crops in their orchards, while still be able to spray their weeds. Being more selective, they can save up to 95% on chemicals with the SpeciesSelect system and 60% to 80% with the green on brown system.

‘A no-brainer for growers’

WeedSelector can already target a lot of different weeds with its green on brown system. The startup is currently still developing the database for its green on green SpeciesSelect technology. “We must get all the growth stages of weeds, to identify them from when they first burst out of the ground to when they are fully grown, in all weather conditions and in different regions. There are a lot of variables that can change with weeds across Australia.”

Agtech By Design uses RGB cameras for the WeedSelector, that are mounted on the boom. The width of the boom can range from 3 metres to 9 metres, with 4 nozzles per metre. “But with some autonomous machines, that we will be running in New Zealand, we will also use booms that are less than 2 metres wide”, Zane points out.

Sprayers to order

After the commercial release of the technology, Agtech By Design will also build sprayers to order. “It depends on the demand. We could have certain sprayers available. So far, we’ve had some positive reactions. Once we sit down with growers, and talk about the numbers, the costs versus savings and the return on investment, it is usually a no-brainer for them to get one. We have also had a lot of feedback from tests and trials we have done over the past four months here in the Riverland.”

For now, the main focus of Agtech By Design is Australia. But the company will be heading to New Zealand as well in the coming years. “And after some years, once we get our footing in the industry and are running properly, the US and Europe might be viable options for us”, Zane says.

Increased pressure on growers

He underlines there is increased pressure from consumers and winery regulations on growers to significantly reduce herbicide application. And the costs of chemical inputs are also increasing “So far, there has been a lack of precision agriculture technologies available to growers in tree and vine crops. Our system allows them to significantly reduce herbicide application while still controlling weeds.”

“Growers can’t overuse certain amount of chemicals. They can only use a certain amount of glyphosate for example. If you can spray 60% to 80% less per run, it would be quite effective. This also reduces the risks of having residual chemicals in the wine, and would be safer for consumers. It saves money as well, not having to refill tanks as much.”

Agtech By Design plans to develop other technology for growers in the future. “We are looking at that. Especially for horticulture, there is not as much a range of precision technology available as for broadacre. Our goal is to help growers in horticulture to increase yield, profit and efficiency.”