BASF and Bosch will expand their collaboration in the field of digital agriculture, uniting their power to launch more advanced, efficient, and eco-friendly systems.
The two German giants have been working together since 2016, but they are now ramping up their efforts to launch a new smart spraying system in the market by next year. The role of Bosch will be to develop a sprayer that does a more controlled and efficient use of herbicides, while BASF will focus on the formulation of more eco-friendly chemicals.
The two companies have now established a common project center where their teams unite to engage in joint research and development activities and level up their synergy. The challenges of this project are big, as the system will need to spray herbicide in a highly targeted manner. More specifically, the goal is to kill only the weeds while leaving the crops unaffected. To do this, the tech experts working in the project will have to deploy novel systems and cutting edge tools.
For example, the spraying unit will use cameras to record the vegetation over the field, analyzing the presence of crop plants and weeds and storing their position. Then, the system will jet the herbicide only where needed, while the scanning and identification continue in real-time, with each data updating step taking only a couple of milliseconds.
Not only does this system result in herbicide savings, but it will also result in the production of much healthier crops since they won’t be sprayed. This will be a game-changer in the field of “green” agriculture, so BASF and Bosch have all the incentives in the world to invest in it.
We only hope that the product will hit the market within 2021 and that the ongoing coronavirus outbreak won’t affect these plans by much.
