Angus firm at forefront of moves to cut pesticide usage

Scotland continued to push to the forefront of the growing agri-tech sector this week with the announcement that a system which could dramatically reduce pesticide usage while safeguarding food production is being developed by an Angusbased precision farming company.

Using a new artificial intelligence (AI) platform which can help train cameras to recognise and differentiate between crop and weed species in the field, the programme aims to target chemicals to individual plants rather than blanket spraying entire crops, a measure which could dramatically reduce the amount of active substances which needs to be applied in order to control weeds.

The system to precision apply herbicides and other sprays in agricultural crops is being developed by Soilessentials following “encouraging results” from an earlier feasibility project, Grass Vision, which successfully developed a low-cost machine vision system to recognise and precision apply herbicides to broadleaved weeds in grassland.

Jim Wilson, managing director of Soilessentials – which as well as carrying out cutting edge research also provides both hardware and software direct to farmers – said that SKAI, the Soilessentials KORE Artificial Intelligence project, would develop on this success and take the approach “to the next level”.

“The aim is that in the very near future we will have technology available which can ensure accurate differentiation between crop and weed species and therefore enable precision targeting of agrochemicals,” said Wilson. “Ultimately this targeting technology will allow farmers, agronomists and agrochemical applicators to dramatically reduce the total amount of protection products applied to crops across Britain and worldwide.”

He said that the SKAI technology would be integrated into the existing KORE precision farming platform, extending its functionality to allow the support of in-field smart cameras using image transfer and machine learning.

The three-year SKAI project, supported by Innovate UK, brings together agricultural practitioners with space industry technicians, agronomists and electrical engineers.

And while Soilessentials Ltd is leading the project they are carrying out the work in partnership with Deimos Space UK Ltd, Peacock Technology Ltd, Scottish Agronomy Ltd and the University of the West of England.