On the surface, little seems to have changed in the corn fertilizer and herbicide field. Farmers still use many of the same nitrogen fertilizer products they've used for decades, such as anhydrous ammonia and urea. The last new sites of action for corn and soybean herbicides appeared about 25 years ago.
But according to panelists at January's Farm Futures Business Summit in Coralville, Iowa, a technology is on the way to shake up this seemingly sleepy world. Below are some of our upcoming plans.
N fertilizer process. If your corn has a deep, rich “blood green” color in midsummer, some of it is likely due to commercial nitrogen applications. Thanks to the Haber-Bosch process (discovered by German chemists in the early 20th century) to produce ammonia used in nitrogen fertilizers. This revolutionized corn production. However, it has its drawbacks, which attract attention.
“This is contributing to a significant carbon footprint, and it's not going to go away anytime soon,” said Scott Shearer, an agricultural engineer at Ohio State University.
This has led companies to look for new ways to produce commercial N with a lower carbon footprint. Shearer said Nitricity is one company that uses electricity to produce a weak nitric acid solution as a nitrogen source for growing crops. Founded in 2018 by a team of Stanford University graduate students, the Fremont, Calif., company uses new low-cost solar and wind-based technologies in its manufacturing process.
Solid encapsulation of herbicides. Approximately 25 years ago, the introduction of Group 27 herbicides (Callisto, Balance Flex) hit a wall in corn and new areas of herbicide application. Since the introduction of these HPPD inhibitor herbicides, chemical companies have not developed new sites of action for corn and soybean herbicides. Still, companies continue to hone the sites of action of existing herbicides. One example is BASF's Surtain herbicide.
Surtain contains a reformulated version of the active ingredient Kixor, a Group 14 (PPO inhibitor) herbicide, and is combined with the Group 15 herbicide Pyroxasulfone (Zidua) for grass control . Surtain features a new solid encapsulation technology that allows farmers to apply pre-emergence and early post-emergence applications to corn.
A smart spray. Machine learning allows the sprayer to spray chemicals only on weeds and nowhere else. Some systems include:
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Look & Spray. John Deere's Ultimate option targets weeds in standing corn, soybeans and cotton planted in rows of 30 inches or more. Premium options upgrade certain existing John Deere sprayers.[選択]The option is aimed at applying herbicide only to weeds in fallow fields.
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One smart spray. The technology was created through a joint venture between Bosch and BASF Digital Farming, with Raven engineers from CNH Industrial leading the integration. It will be commercially available from Case IH and New Holland Sprayers. One Smart Spray also collaborates with Agco on the Fendt Rogator sprayer.
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Selective spray. Greeneye Technology's system is designed to be retrofitted to existing sprayers.
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Bilberry. Trimble added this system to its crop protection portfolio, which already included the targeted spray system WeedSeeker 2.
Benefits include reducing the amount of chemicals used during spray application. However, this may also require reformulation of the chemicals used in these systems, said Kurt Maertens, BASF technical services representative.
“Changing formulations is not an overnight process,” he says. That could take five to seven years and may also require regulatory approval, he added.