Technology fights weeds
ARTIFICIAL intelligence could provide the game-changing weapon sought by Australian grain growers in their battle against costly weeds within their farming systems.
Breakthrough ‘green on green’ weed search and destroy technology developed in France has the potential to reduce herbicide use by
80 per cent, according to the company behind the technology.
Queensland grain growers, their advisers and other grains industry personnel will be given a first-hand account of the technology’s potential at the Grains Research and Development Corporation’s Grains Research Update in Goondiwindi on March 5 and 6.
Guillaume Jourdain, the co-founder and chief executive officer of French technology start-up company Bilberry, is one of the speakers on day one of the Grains Research Update at the Goondiwindi Community Cultural Centre.
Mr Jourdain, who trained as an engineer, will explain his company’s artificial intelligence-based weedmanagement tool which combines an array of cameras with in-crop weed recognition, real-time spot spraying and weed-mapping software.
Thanks to specially developed artificial intelligence algorithms, Bilberry technology has the potential to recognise weeds within agricultural crops during both the day and night.
At the Grains Research Update, Mr Jourdain will focus on this capability and review the results Bilberry achieved with the technology’s first users.
GRDC grower relations manager north Susan McDonnell said the Grains Research Update was a premier event on the northern grains calendar, offering growers and advisers an invaluable opportunity to hear the latest findings from the GRDC’s broad portfolio of investments in research and development.
“The GRDC invests in research on behalf of growers that is designed to deliver real gains to farm profitability and assist in overcoming constraints and positioning the industry well for the future,” she said.
“Communicating outcomes from this research, along with innovative developments in agricultural technology and topical issues like climate change implications, is a critical part of our role and responsibility to growers, advisers and industry stakeholders.
“Update topics are selected by local planning committees and include regionally relevant, rigorously tested research that is farm-ready and has the potential to bolster grower bottom lines.”
Keynote speakers at the Goondiwindi Update include Steve Crimp from the Australian National University, who will discuss climate
change’s impact on northern farming systems, how much change has already occurred and what is forecast for the future; Harm van Rees, of Crop Facts Pty Ltd, who will delve into opportunities for bridging the ‘yield gap’ as highlighted through the National Paddock Survey; and Greg Rebetzke from CSIRO, who will share the latest research into cereal breeding for a changing climate.
Day one topics include: using real-time paddock measurements with an infield spectrometer or NIR on your mobile phone; the latest chickpea harvest and desiccation timing; timing fungicide spray relative to inoculation; the physiology and genetics of cold temperatures in chickpeas; chaff tramlining for weed seeds; residual herbicides and sowthistle; targeted tillage; the barley stem rust outbreak on the Darling Downs in 2019; the latest on crown rot; and do new longseason barley varieties fit in the north?
Day two topics include: the helicoverpa-resistance management strategy; how small changes in management can impact profitability; how subsoil constraints impact soil health; using EM38 at the crop lower limit to identify constraints and influence nutrient management; future farming technologies leading to automation; cover crop research to improve water-use efficiency; tactical decisions on crop sequencing; and the impact of crop sequence on soil water.