Agritech firm Greeneye Technology has launched AI-enabled precision spraying technology which cuts herbicide use by 78% and reduces costs by more than 50% on average compared to standard broadcast spraying. The company has also secured its first commercial sale with one of the largest farming operations in Israel.

The company’s system is designed to integrate into any brand or size of commercial sprayer, reducing cost-of-entry for precision spraying technology.

Greeneye plans a global roll-out, with a launch in North America in early 2022, where it will work initially with corn and soybean farmers in the Midwest, before increasing availability to other regions in 2023. The company’s early adopter programme in North America was oversubscribed within days of its announcement, and the company already has a long waiting list of customers for 2023.

Backed by agrochemical manufacturer, Syngenta, Israeli-based Greeneye Technology has developed a proprietary precision spraying technology which uses AI technology to detect and spray weeds amongst crops (green on green) with 95.7% accuracy. Precision spraying can be carried out at the same travel speed as broadcast spraying – 20 km/h – ensuring no reduction in productivity for farmers.

Greeneye’s solution uses a combination of hardware and deep machine learning to enable intelligent, real-time weed management decisions in the field. Cameras mounted directly onto spraying machines capture images at a rate of 40 frames per second, enabling rapid detection and classification of weeds down to the species level. Utilising Greeneye’s proprietary dataset and algorithms, the system calculates the amount of herbicide required and sprays it directly onto the weeds, leaving nearby crops unaffected.

Greeneye’s technology has a dual-spraying function which enables farmers to apply residual herbicides on a broadcast basis while applying non-residual herbicides precisely on weeds. Currently, farmers mix together residual and non-residual herbicides and spray them from the same nozzle, meaning they use far more non-residual herbicide than is needed.

Nadav Bocher, CEO, Greeneye Technology, said: “Weeds represent one of the greatest threats to global crop production – in the US alone, they are estimated to cost farmers more than $33b2 in lost production annually. Today, farmers address this challenge by spraying herbicides across the entire field – even though weed infestation may be as low as 10%. As a result, not only are farmers spending far more money on herbicides than they need to, but millions of gallons of herbicides are being needlessly sprayed each year, which is contributing to the mounting challenges posed by herbicide-resistant weeds, chemical drift, and soil and water contamination.

“Despite a concerted effort by the agriculture industry to develop precision spraying technologies, so far very few of these projects have moved beyond the trial phase. This is because the technology either fails to deliver the necessary level of accuracy and efficacy, or it requires farmers to invest in new spraying machines, making it prohibitively expensive. Uniquely, Greeneye’s solution overcomes both of these challenges, offering farmers what we believe is the most advanced commercially-viable precision spraying technology on the market.”