The Saskatoon company’s camera-based system mounts on a sprayer boom and captures field conditions as farmers make passes across the field. Using machine learning, it analyzes thousands of images to generate crop and weed maps, along with plant stand counts.

The system was first introduced in a limited rollout in 2022 and went through on-farm testing before expanding more broadly. Early versions were installed on a small number of farms to gather data and refine the technology.

“We spend a couple of years using the product in the field before it’s commercialized,” CEO Cory Willness said.

“By the time something gets commercialized, it has already been used internally and has been through pretty rigorous testing.”

Adding in-season data to zone maps

SWAT Cam is designed to complement the company’s core SWAT Maps platform, which divides fields into management zones based on soil, water and topography. While those maps are relatively static, SWAT Cam adds a layer of in-season observation.

As the sprayer moves through the field, cameras mounted on the boom capture images every 50 to 60 feet. Those images are processed to measure plant populations and identify weed pressure and are then overlaid onto existing zone maps.

“It’s really a tool that uses the SWAT Map as the base underneath to define what’s happening in different areas of the field,” he said.

The system is not designed to make real-time decisions. Instead, it provides information that farmers and agronomists can use to evaluate performance and adjust management in future seasons.

For example, growers can use the data to compare expected and actual plant stands or identify patterns in crop performance across different parts of a field. In some cases, that can lead to changes in seeding rates or other input decisions.

“It’s information that helps them make better decisions in the future,” he said.

“It’s like a quick check-up tool.”

Adoption to date has been concentrated in Western Canada, where the company operates both directly with farmers and through a partner network.

The technology can be used on crops such as canola, wheat and soybeans, although its effectiveness depends on crop stage and canopy conditions.

The milestone offers a snapshot of how Croptimistic’s platform is expanding beyond its original focus on soil-based mapping.

In recent months, the company has introduced a series of new initiatives aimed at building out that platform, including SWAT Labs, an in-house soil testing facility, and a white paper outlining its approach to regenerative agriculture.

Together, those efforts point to two sides of the company’s development — expanding its core services while building new tools and frameworks around them.

“We have what I call an innovation engine and a business engine,” Willness said.

SWAT Labs is an example of the “business engine,” reflecting an effort to bring more of the soil data pipeline under one roof, from sampling through analysis.

The white paper, meanwhile, falls under “innovation,” and signals a push to shape how that data is interpreted and used in agronomic decision-making.

“These initiatives are building toward bigger things,” he said.

CLARIFICATION, April 7, 2026: Cory Willness’ name was accidentally left out of the print version of this article in the April 9 issue. We regret the error.

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At the time, the company said it was working on expanding the system’s functionality to other crops.

Deere has now made good on that promise. For 2027 model year machines, it will be compatible with wheat, barley and canola.

“For model year ’27 we have a really exciting upgrade for our small grains customers,” says Joshua Ladd, marketing manager for application equipment.

“This year we’re ecstatic to roll out our small grains functionality for wheat, canola and barley in crop, and we expanded the lineup for our variable rate function for later season passes with desiccation pre-harvest passes.”

All three levels of See and Spray (Select, Premium and Ultimate) are now integrated into the same basic platform. That gives buyers more customization options, such as opting for single or dual-tank capability.

The second generation Gen 2 version also includes changes that give it improved performance over the original Gen 1 release.

Notably, the location of the boom’s centre cameras has been moved to reduce the number of times they unnecessarily revert to full broadcast mode because of vision obstructions.

“The most consistent thing we saw for a fall-back trigger was on the centre of the machine because there were four cameras tucked in on the centre behind the rear tires,” says Ladd.

“The dust they kicked up would occlude the cameras….

“With Gen 2, it’s still 36 cameras, but for those four cameras that were on the centre frame behind the tires, we’ve now located those to the front. (Moving) the four cameras to the front should significantly reduce the dust issue.”

The new hardware for the Gen 2 system is lighter and reduces weight stress on the boom.

“We’ve now gone from 10 processors to three,” he adds.

“We now have a combination of three processors and five video extenders (VEX). The VEX is overall a lighter component than the processor.”

With that lighter load, Deere can now offer full boom lighting to allow green-on-brown operation after dark in fallow fields. The brand is working on making the green-on-green system usable at night, but so far it isn’t.

See and Spray will also be compatible with a wider range of nozzle options.

“We can use our rear-incline nozzle to achieve a See and Spray speed of 16 m.p.h.,” says Ladd.

“We’re now approved to work with straight-down nozzles, though it does reduce the operational speed down to 12 m.p.h.

“Previously we said you had to use a specific category of nozzles, so we’re now widening that a bit, giving customers flexibility in nozzles they like to use for their operation.”

Deere will continue to offer the See and Spray system on a subscription basis, which Ladd says helps reduce the initial purchase cost.

The Gen 2 system will be available on 408R, 410R, 412R, 612R, and 616R sprayers, as well as all Hagie sprayers, the STS12, STS16, and STS20 for model year 2027.

Also, a new four-wheel steering feature will be an option on the 400 Series chassis, something that was previously available only on the Hagie sprayer lineup.

For those who would like to add targeted spraying to their operation but don’t want to fork out the cost of an entirely new machine, Deere is offering a See and Spray Select upgrade kit for some previous model year machines.

The Gen 2 See and Spray technology will be on display in John Deere’s exhibit at the Ag in Motion farm show this summer.

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In a release Jan. 19, the two companies described their plan as a way to consolidate their businesses and operate as a single, larger dealership network meant to combine the two companies’ capabilities.

“By combining resources, expertise, and technology, we’ll be able to serve farmers with an even broader range of solutions and faster access to the parts and service they depend on,” said Curwin Friesen, president of Greenvalley Equipment.

WHY IT MATTERS: The companies say the merger aims to give Manitoba farmers faster, more reliable access to parts, service, and technology through a larger dealership network.

Enns Brothers, which started at Sanford in 1953 and has sold Deere equipment since 1956, today operates nine locations at Oak Bluff, Brandon, Steinbach, Portage la Prairie, Arborg, Shoal Lake, Melita, Neepawa and Morris.

Greenvalley, which began at Morden in 1989, has since acquired Deere dealerships at Altona, Killarney and Treherne. It operates under the Agri Western Dealer Group, which works with other Deere dealer chains on the Prairies.

Both dealerships share similar priorities, said Ray Bouchard, chief executive officer of Enns Brothers.

“Together, we’ll have the scale and financial strength to continue investing in innovation and meeting the evolving needs of our industry for years to come.”

According to the companies, the merger would bring their equipment lines, parts inventories and service teams under one umbrella. Local ownership and existing staff are expected to be maintained after the transition.

The companies aim to complete their merger in April.

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The partnership pairs Geco’s predictive mapping tools with Gowan’s line of soil-applied herbicides in a collaboration aimed at helping farms take a more deliberate, patch-based approach to weed control over multiple seasons.

Why it matters: Seeing weed pressure ahead of emergence can make herbicide decisions more targeted and cost-effective.

Geco’s announcement includes two offerings tied to the partnership. The company is launching a new three-season predictive-mapping subscription, and growers who sign up through a Gowan representative will receive one additional field map at no extra cost.

“Our technology enables the question: If you could know where your most problematic patches are and where they are spreading to, what could you do differently? That’s what our technology makes possible,” said Greg Stewart, CEO of Geco.

How predictive mapping works

While blanket applications and spot sprayers respond to weeds already visible in-season, predictive mapping works ahead of emergence by using multi-year imagery to identify the areas most likely to develop patches. That allows farms to be proactive with treatments, rather than reacting after they’ve already gained ground.

A grower wanting a map begins by sharing a field boundary with Geco, often through a platform like John Deere Operations Center. If they don’t have a boundary available, Geco can make one for them. From there, Geco pulls every usable satellite image of that field from the last five growing seasons and runs them through tools designed to distinguish crop from weeds across the full season.

That multi-year history is what drives the prediction. Stewart said the key isn’t ultra-high-resolution imagery as much as having dozens of images per season and several years of history to reveal how weed patches shift over time.

The history shows where weeds tend to emerge early or flush late, and where patches persist. The resulting prescription can be exported straight into a sprayer, granular applicator, drill or variable-rate seeding tool.

“We look at a field, understand where weeds have been and where they’re going, and from there the farm decides what to do,” he said.

Geco has calibrated its system by comparing predictions against drone imagery, spot-sprayer data and human scouting across many fields.

Because the algorithms used to make these calibrations and predictions are proprietary, Stewart was tight-lipped about their inner workings. But while they play a big role in the process, he says the real challenge is fitting the technology into a farmer’s season.

“It’s not usually the math that breaks these technologies,” he said. “It’s how well you solve a real-world problem.”

That means making sure the system fits farm reality. It must mesh with timing at the end of the season and fold naturally into a grower’s weed-control plan. Those practical points tend to matter more than the complexity of the algorithm.

That’s also where partnerships come in. Predictive maps don’t work in isolation; they need to line up with the herbicides and practices growers are already using in the field.

Many early adopters were already using chemistries such as ethalfluralin and triallate (the active ingredients in Gowan’s Edge and Avadex) on their worst kochia and wild-oat patches. Those products are expensive to blanket across entire fields, and predictive maps help target them only where they’re most likely to deliver a return. So, the collaboration made sense for both companies.

But herbicides are only one part of the equation, said Stewart. Once the map is made, growers still need a plan for how to use it: which products to place where, when to increase seeding rates and how to tackle the “problem-child” areas that keep showing up year after year.

“It’s the agronomist and the farmer who put together that strategy,” he said.

How agronomists use the technology

One of those agronomists is Rob Warkentin of Davidson, Sask., who has helped several farms work predictive maps into their weed-control plans.

For Warkentin, predictive mapping works best on fields with well-defined patches like those same “problem-child” zones mentioned by Stewart. Once he receives a map, he reviews it with the grower to confirm the predicted zones match field history and scouting. He then adjusts rates, creates the prescription file and loads it into the sprayer or applicator.

There are still some practical limits — the kind Stewart refers to when he talks about real-world barriers. For example, some older spreaders can’t run prescription maps. Fortunately there is an easy workaround: growers can load the files into Google Maps. However, Warkentin says timing is a more stubborn problem for farmers.

“The best time to look at these maps is after harvest, but that’s also the busiest time of year,” he said. “By the time fall work is done, there’s very little time left to get maps made up and implemented.”

For farms using higher-value soil-applied products, the economics work well. Targeting only the worst 20 or 30 per cent of the field makes premium herbicides more economical and reduces total chemical use. Farms using lower-cost products may see less financial benefit, since the price of generating a prescription can outweigh the savings from variable-rate application.

However, Stewart noted that most growers use the maps to intensify control in the toughest patches — not necessarily to cut total inputs.

Either way, Warkentin says growers who used the maps were pleased with the results.

“The system isn’t perfect, and producers know there will be a few small misses,” he said. “But overall the people who’ve used it have been happy with the results.”

The science behind patch prediction

Stewart says much of Geco’s system grew out of earlier work in greenhouse pest modelling and even pandemic-spread research. The ebb and flow of insects in a greenhouse, or disease outbreaks during a pandemic, mirror how weed patches behave across a field, and understanding those patterns is key to making predictions.

For weed scientist Charles Geddes of AAFC Lethbridge, predictive mapping fits within a broader integrated weed management approach. He sees it helping growers make more deliberate decisions about where to invest their time, herbicides or cultural practices.

“I see this as another tool in the toolbox farmers have at their disposal,” he said.

Weed pressure is becoming harder to manage due to expanding herbicide resistance and weather variability that affects herbicide performance. Geddes says predictive mapping can help farmers plan where residual herbicides or added competition may provide the biggest returns. Using herbicides that stack multiple modes of action can be costly, especially on dryland farms, and applying them across full fields isn’t always justifiable.

“Predictive mapping lets farmers target herbicides or other practices where they’ll have the greatest impact,” Geddes said. “That can go a long way toward managing both costs and resistance.”

He also notes the technology adds some complexity. Prescription mapping requires growers to manage another layer of planning at a time of year when workloads are already heavy. That may limit adoption for some operations. But he expects interest to grow as farms gain experience and as more tools in crop production move toward AI-driven decision support.

Looking ahead

To date, Geco has evaluated more than 300 Prairie fields, building a clearer picture of how weed patches behave from year to year. The company has also been running pilot projects in the U.S., Australia, Europe and South America to discover how transferable the approach may be. But Stewart says the long-term focus remains firmly on Western Canada, where the vast majority of its customers currently reside.

That Prairie focus shapes where the technology goes next. Stewart says the company is now putting more emphasis on building partnerships with local retailers, agronomists and farmers to support longer-term, multi-season weed strategies. The Gowan partnership is just one example.

“We’re starting to partner with other retailers and independent agronomists across the region,” he said. “We’re really developing those relationships as much as we can these days.”

CORRECTION, Jan. 2, 2026: On page 5 in the Dec. 31, 2025 print edition, the final eight words of this article were accidentally chopped out at the end. We regret the error.

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The company skipped a few generations from its previous T50 model to address the specific needs of western Canadian farmers.

‘We went straight to the biggest drum. The reason for this is because Canada is unlike any other country, where we have a majority of our land here is all flat. It’s big, open and flat. Of course, we do have a lot of hilly coulees, and B.C. has orchards or small, irregular shaped fields,” said Loren Ginn, area development manger for Sky Drones Inc., a distributor of DJI Agriculture.

Equipped with a 100-litre tank, the drone supports workloads for spraying and granular spreading (150-litre capacity) and has a lift system with a stabilizer, capable of carrying an 80-kilogram payload. Its maximum capability is covering 82 acres per hour, travelling at 72 km/h.

“A lot of the pasture guys, they like to seed their alfalfa, or if they’re going to put down grass seed, you can get to an area with the drone that tractors and other pieces of equipment might struggle a little bit with,” said Ginn.

The drone’s speed should be slowed depending on what it’s being used for, he added.

For spreading, the T100 has a built-in auger system that helps in slightly rainy conditions by helping break up the fertilizer.

The auger system ensures more consistent and efficient granular spreading by mechanically processing the fertilizer before dispersal. This means that even if the fertilizer is slightly clumpy or damp, the auger can still effectively distribute it across the field.

Sky Drones recommends a speed of 30 km per hour, which is still 60 to 70 acres per hour to maximize efficiency and cut down on spray shadowing.

Spraying crops such as corn or potatoes that have a lot of foliage will require slower speeds to get the product underneath the canopy.

The drone can travel faster on cereals and pasture because they do not need as much fumigation.

“Everyone has seen planes and crop dusters, but they have booms that go straight up,” Ginn said.

The way these drones work is rather than having booms that go out and then fall in a straight line, they have atomized sprinklers on either side of the drone. So that way it’s able to spread it out, then it relies on the down wash off of the drone to push it into the canopy.”

The drone has a regular 13-metre spray width, he said.

Ginn said producers are often intimidated by drones, afraid they are not going to be able to operate them properly.

However, he said artificial general intelligence software means operators rarely have to fly the drone manually, as long as they know how to make maps, which is part of the company’s training.

Sky Drones conducts demonstrations similar to what it did at Riverview Ranch during the Innovation on the Range field day.

“We want (producers) to actually use it and make their money back year after year from each drone. There’s not much point in us selling them if people don’t use them and understand how they work.”

Non-recreational drones can be a pricey proposition, but funding is available for agriculture producers through the On-Farm Efficiency Program, said Sonja Shank, program co-ordinator for the Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta.

It is a 50-50 cost share up to $150,000.

Along with drones used for secondary purposes such as agriculture, the program also covers cameras in imaging/mapping drones and the first year of subscription fees for technology.

According to the Alberta government’s web page for the program, applications for the program are closed for 2025 and will re-open in April .

“Keep these things in mind when you go into the fall and start planning,” Shank said.

“There are a lot of these little funding pieces out there that not everybody knows about. And if you’re in the know, you’re in the know.”

Innovation on the Range was organized by the Chinook Applied Research Association.

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“He said, ‘Hey, I gotta show you something at my farm,’” Beres, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge, recalls. “So he grabbed me, jumped in his truck and we drove over.”

Halford is no ordinary farmer. He’s a zero-till pioneer and inventor. He made headlines in 2007, when he sold the technology for the ConservaPak air seeder to John Deere. He was inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame in 2021.

Halford showed Beres a retrofitted swather with a spray boom and tank, and a cart towed behind for water and herbicide solution.

“He’d done the homework,” Beres says. “It worked.”

What Halford had done — spraying pre-seed herbicide at the same time as swathing his canola — wasn’t just a clever labour-saver. It was a potential solution to one of the biggest obstacles preventing more Prairie farmers from growing winter wheat: timing.

From Down Under to the drawing board

Halford first got the idea after visiting Australia. It turns out Prairie farmers aren’t the only ones looking for ways to save time at harvest. Some innovative farmers down under were using a technique that let them spray and swath at the same time.

“I didn’t see it actually operating — they just talked about it,” Halford says. So, when he got back to Canada, he got to work on a prototype based on what he’d heard.

He retrofitted his self-propelled swather with a spray boom that reached under and behind, where the swath dropped. He towed a two-wheeled tank behind to carry enough water to make the setup work at field scale. He was convinced it could offer a better way to control weeds and preserve soil moisture at a critical time of year, when growers are swamped with harvest and field work.

“We realized the benefits of it, and that’s why we were working on it,” Halford says. “If you knock your weeds out as soon as you get an opportunity, you’re going to start saving moisture.”

His goal wasn’t to launch a product — though he said that might have happened if he’d stayed in the seeder business, but that option wasn’t available once he sold the ConservaPak seeder technology to John Deere.

Some assembly required

While both Halford and Beres say the retrofit isn’t especially complex or costly, the study didn’t offer step-by-step retrofit instructions. That said, Halford’s prototype proves it’s doable for those willing to experiment with their equipment.

“You’ve just got to get the boom under the centre, where your crop is coming out of the swather,” Halford says. “We had a tank on a cart behind, and a boom tucked underneath — even under the middle.”

The key, he says, was making sure the boom delivered consistent spray coverage under the swath.

After seeing the prototype, Beres folded Halford’s design into a funding proposal for a sequencing study with winter wheat and canola.

“This is one of the best examples I’ve seen of how farmer-led ideas can feed into large-scale agronomic research,” Beres says. “Jim showed us it could work at scale, and our job was to build the science around it.”

Eliminating a field pass

The study focused on finding ways to streamline fall operations so farmers could more easily seed winter wheat following canola. In many regions, that tight window is a key reason growers hesitate to plant winter cereals.

To address that squeeze, researchers explored whether the swathing and pre-seed herbicide pass for winter wheat could be done at the same time, using Halford’s concept. Across multiple sites, they retrofitted field-scale swathers with onboard spray systems.

For their plot-scale equipment, Beres’ team was able to mount tanks directly on the swather. Beres noted they were still using commercial swathers on their big agronomy plots. They were just narrower, at 15 feet wide. And the retrofit was done at a modest price.

“The only difference between us and Jim is that we could mount the tank onto the swather,” he says.

It worked. The study showed strong weed control and no need for an additional fall herbicide application.

And importantly, when researchers worked with the Canadian Grain Commission to test the highest-risk samples, they found no glyphosate residue in most of the harvested canola. In one or two cases, trace amounts were detected, but well below the maximum residue limits (MRLs) set by the government of Canada to protect market access.

Yield bump, fewer passes

One surprise was how well winter wheat performed after swathed canola, compared to straight cut.

“We saw a yield bump with swathing,” Beres says. “We don’t know why, but it’s probably related to conserving soil moisture.”

Halford’s own experience backed that up. Though he didn’t conduct formal trials, he left unsprayed check strips in his fields and says the benefits were clear.

“The weed control was excellent,” Halford says. “We saw a big difference, especially with fall-germinating weeds that would otherwise be taking up moisture.”

Beres emphasizes the system also has potential to reduce herbicide use beyond the fall season. Because winter wheat is highly competitive, in-crop spraying often isn’t needed — particularly if the fall application is well timed.

“If you did something like a 2,4-D application in mid-October, when winter annuals start to emerge, that might be all you need,” said Beres. “We’ve shown that in multiple studies.”

Swathing versus straight cutting: the debate isn’t over

For years, western Canadian growers have increasingly moved away from swathing in favour of straight cutting. This is especially true in brown-soil zones where crop height and yield potential tend to be lower. But Beres said attitudes may be starting to shift.

“We’re seeing some pushback,” Beres says. “Guys who tried straight cutting are going back to swathing. When you’ve got a heavy crop, it can be hard to get the timing right across the field.”

That inconsistency can delay harvest and jeopardize the window for planting winter wheat, especially in regions where fall weather tends to be less forgiving.

The study also addressed a common hesitation about swathing: concerns about pod shatter. But researchers used pod shatter reduction hybrids and saw no issues in either standing or swathed canola. “We really wanted to verify that those traits work when integrated into a systems study, and they do,” Beres says. “It’s one more concern we were able to take off the table.”

An idea with agronomic legs — even as research wanes

Though Beres says the swather-sprayer concept is ready for farmers to test on their own operations, he doesn’t expect much further work on winter wheat out west — at least not any time soon.

“There’s a lack of interest in funding winter wheat agronomy, largely because of the low acreage versus spring wheat, so impact from agronomy can be tenfold or more in spring versus winter wheat, so it makes more sense to fund and conduct research in a spring wheat system,” he says. “This study, and another we published earlier this year, are kind of the swan song for large-scale winter wheat agronomy in our program.”

That other study looked at crop rotations leading into winter wheat and showed that pulses like lentil and soybean actually outperform canola in some cases. Like this study, it confirmed winter wheat’s strong fit in Prairie systems, even if it’s often overlooked.

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Cellular service in rural areas has improved over the years, but there are still significant gaps in coverage, to the point where machinery brands now find it necessary to address that problem themselves.

Last year, John Deere announced it was partnering with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service to provide enhanced connectivity for its machines.

The service kicked off in Brazil, where a widespread lack of connectivity is a major problem for farmers, and in January the brand announced the satellite service would be made available as a backup connection to cellular in the U.S. Deere has now made that service available in Canada, too (see below).

CNH then said it will address the connectivity concern in the same way, by inking its own agreement with Starlink. The manufacturer had announced a similar agreement in 2024 with Virginia-based Intelsat.

“This collaboration will provide customers of CNH brands, Case IH, New Holland and Steyr, with robust and affordable high-speed connectivity, further unlocking the benefits of a fully connected fleet, even in the most remote rural locations around the world,” the company said of the Starlink agreement in a news release.

CNH’s FieldOps digital platform will sync seamlessly with the Starlink service and provide enhanced data transfer capabilities.

Starlink is widely considered to be the company most capable of providing the service, as a leader in the satellite-based connectivity business. Even governments around the world have chosen to contract with it.

It’s estimated roughly half a million Canadian households also get their internet access through Starlink’s service.

However, while it has become the global go-to provider, there are now growing concerns about whether it can really be trusted in the long term. None of those reasons have to do with technical ability, but rather its corporate leadership.

Starlink caught in political crossfire

SpaceX’s owner, Elon Musk, and his political association with U.S. President Donald Trump are seen by some as the company’s potential Achilles heel, particularly for those relying on it outside the U.S.

In February, Global News reported U.S. negotiators attempting to reach a minerals agreement with Ukraine threatened to cut off that country’s access to Starlink communications as a negotiating threat.

In a CTV News online post in late March, Dwayne Winseck, a professor of journalism and communications at Carleton University who has studied Starlink, told the network he thinks Canadian governments must do the maximum possible to disentangle themselves from the company.

In a March 4 public announcement in response to U.S. tariff threats and Musk’s involvement in government affairs, Ontario Premier Doug Ford did just that, cancelling the province’s $100 million Starlink agreement to provide services to remote regions of the province.

The European Union is also reported to be looking for alternatives to Starlink, citing both security and reliability concerns as well as a need to avoid reliance on foreign systems in a time of growing political uncertainty.

In early March, Musk reposted a message on X in which he said he should cut off British Columbia from Starlink service because the province excluded his Tesla brand cars from provincial rebate eligibility.

An April 2025 report from the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project also suggests relying on Starlink presents a serious reliability risk for Canadian subscribers.

“The fact that Musk controls Starlink’s entire value chain raises urgent questions about national sovereignty and security given his central role in the autocratic Trump administration and strident hostility towards democratically elected governments in Canada, Europe and Latin America in recent years,” the report reads.

There are other satellite service providers out there, such as Eutelsat from Europe and Canada’s Telesat — but both apparently have some way to go to match the level of service Starlink can provide.

“We do have the ability to build our own infrastructure in Canada, and we have the expertise,” CTV quoted Winseck as saying. “We should be building our own economy, our own industries to do it, rather than outsourcing it to a foreign company.”

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Will it affect herbicide efficacy? Is it safe or effective to spray in smoky conditions? Could it influence inversions?

The short answer: it’s complicated — but there are some educated guesses and early-stage research that can help.

Don’t delay spraying

Tom Wolf, a longtime spray expert and contributor to Sprayers101.com, says while there’s no direct research on the impact of wildfire smoke on herbicide application, some inferences can be drawn based on how smoke affects plant growth, solar radiation and atmospheric conditions.

“It is difficult to say, because we don’t have very specific information on the effect of smoke on the spray operation itself,” Wolf says. “We do have some information on plant growth, so we can infer a few things about herbicide performance that might be a result of its effect on plant growth.”

—> READ MORE: Click here for more from our sister books on smoke’s effects on crops

One of the key concerns, he says, is that wildfire smoke may reduce thermal turbulence during the day. This turbulence plays an important role in spraying by helping droplets settle into the canopy and by dispersing them to minimize drift. Smoke blocks sunlight, reducing surface heating and weakening the air mixing that creates thermal turbulence.

“So it’s possible that if drift occurs, it will likely have a longer reach,” he says.

On the other hand, the effect of smoke at night might actually be positive. Wolf says it’s possible smoke could suppress nighttime inversions by trapping heat near the surface. If that happens, it could delay the onset or reduce the severity of an inversion.

Beyond air movement, smoke can also affect the plants themselves — potentially impacting uptake and efficacy. Smoke reduces photosynthesis in plants and overall plant growth, and Wolf points out that vigorous plant growth helps herbicides move through the plant effectively.

“If the plant hurts, then herbicide translocation hurts,” he says.

Another concern is atmospheric humidity. Smoke particles absorb moisture from the air, which can dry the atmosphere — not ideal for spraying. It means the spray droplets arrive a little smaller, and more prone to drift.

A drier atmosphere can also hinder herbicide uptake. Sprays are most effective when droplets remain wet on the leaf surface, since the herbicide is absorbed more efficiently during that time.

“We really want drops to stay wet as long as possible,” Wolf says.

Still, he emphasizes, any negative effects from smoke are likely to be minor compared to the risks of delaying a spray. Waiting too long can allow weeds to get ahead of the crop and start causing yield losses.

Sunlight dependency

As for specific herbicides that may be affected, Manitoba Agriculture weed specialist Kim Brown says smoke-related conditions — particularly, reduction in sunlight — may affect the performance of some light-activated herbicides.

“The main one I think of is Liberty,” she says. “We know that it requires a good dose of sunlight to really be effective.”

That’s because Liberty (glufosinate) relies on photosynthetic activity in the plant to facilitate uptake and injury. “We might see reduced activity from Liberty if it’s cloudy or smoky,” Brown says, though she emphasizes there hasn’t been formal study of this in smoky conditions specifically.

Another product that might be affected is Reglone (diquat), used for crop desiccation. “That’s another one where we know sunlight plays a role,” she says.

Brown also echoes Wolf’s point that inversions — the calm, cool conditions that trap spray droplets close to the ground and increase drift risk — could be influenced by smoke.

“Reduced sunlight could delay the warming of the ground in the morning, which may extend the inversion period,” she says. “But we really don’t know enough yet to quantify how often or how significantly that happens.”

Limited research, some emerging data

The lack of data is a recurring theme in talking about the effects of wildfire smoke on cropping systems. While most experts agree smoke is unlikely to affect yields in a major way, they also caution that very little research has been done.

While formal research remains sparse, growing recognition that wildfire smoke may be a recurring issue is beginning to drive more scientific attention.

—> READ MORE: Wildfire smoke threatens to hinder honey flow

A 2024 PhD dissertation from Kansas State University used satellite data and historical yield records to show that wildfire smoke exposure has been reducing soybean yields in parts of the U.S. northern Plains.

That’s certainly the expected result: less sunlight means less photosynthesis, which can lead to lower yields. But not all early findings point in the same direction.

Research out of Purdue University in Indiana found wildfire smoke may actually have a small benefit for corn under certain conditions.

The study looked closely at how smoke affects solar radiation — and what that means for corn.

“Smoke reflects sunlight,” says Dan Quinn, assistant professor of agronomy and extension corn specialist at Purdue. “But it also scatters it, and that can actually help tall crops like corn.”

Speaking at CropConnect in Winnipeg last year, Quinn explained that scattered, or diffused, light penetrates the corn canopy more deeply, which can boost photosynthesis in the lower leaves. That slight cooling can also reduce crop stress during extreme heat.

While he says it’s difficult to pin down the yield impact exactly, Quinn suspects the 2023 smoke in Indiana may have been a net benefit.

“It likely resulted in a net positive for corn grown in the state,” he said, but added that same benefit could be specific to corn because it’s a tall crop with a deep canopy.

A grey area

For now, there’s more inference than certainty around the effects of wildfire smoke on Prairie farming. With research still in early stages, farmers will have to make decisions based on best practices and observation rather than established data.

So, for now, Wolf’s advice still holds: don’t wait to spray.

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FieldWatch is a U.S.-based non-profit that runs DriftWatch, BeeCheck and FieldCheck — mapping tools designed to let farmers and pesticide applicators communicate about sensitive crop areas. Organic growers and beekeepers register locations voluntarily, and applicators check the maps before spraying.

It’s been available in Saskatchewan since 2012, and both Alberta and Manitoba launched the program this spring.

The expansion was funded by a mix of industry groups, including CropLife Canada, Manitoba Organics, the Manitoba Beekeepers Association, the Alberta Beekeepers Commission and Organic Alberta. To make it easier for both provinces to sign on, FieldWatch allowed Alberta and Manitoba to split the program’s $24,500 startup fee.

“Accidental spray incidents are surprisingly common and can have significant financial and mental health impacts on organic farmers,” says Tracey Smith of Organic Alberta. “If organic farmland is accidentally sprayed, the land loses organic status for three years.”

Marika Dewar-Norosky, executive director of Manitoba Organics, knows that reality firsthand. Her farm lost certification after being mistakenly sprayed.

“It wasn’t a matter of drift in that case; it was mixed coordinates,” Dewar-Norosky says. “They had the wrong land description.”

FieldWatch’s platforms integrate with GPS software already used by aerial applicators. They overlay sensitive sites, such as organic fields, directly onto the applicator’s screen.

“So it would show my farm in bright red to say, this is a sensitive area,” Dewar-Norosky says.

The program’s success will depend on the buy-in from applicators, but Dewar-Norosky is optimistic. When she was building support for the project, she called every commercial applicator in Manitoba. She said the responses were overwhelmingly positive. She was even able to secure a corporate sponsorship from Western Canadian Aerial, based at Franklin, Man. That sponsorship helped foot the bill for the initial startup cost.

“Everyone’s really excited to be involved. No one wants to spray a beehive or organic acres.”

The program is aimed at commercial applicators, which on the Prairies mostly means aerial spraying. “If you’re spraying your own field, you already know if your neighbours are organic,” Dewar-Norosky says.

Bob Walters, CEO of FieldWatch, says label requirements often dictate when and where applicators can spray. In some cases, labels even require checking a local registry for beehives or sensitive crops.

Applicators don’t need to be registered to use the maps; anyone can view them. Walters says that ease of access is intentional, to avoid creating bureaucratic hurdles.

“But beyond the legal side of it, most applicators really do care,” he says. “I’ve met very few, whether on the ground or in the air, who aren’t concerned about someone else’s livelihood. They want to do the right thing.”

Beekeeper reluctance

Connie Phillips, executive director of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission, says the risk of drift is well known among her members, especially those servicing hybrid canola seed fields in the province’s south.

“Every year since I’ve worked for the commission, it has been inevitable that bees and workers get sprayed by aerial sprayers. Not on purpose, of course,” Phillips says.

She said beekeepers want to see better co-ordination with sprayers, but concerns around revealing hive locations run deep. “It’s going to be slow. They don’t want others to know where their bees are.”

That reluctance is well known to Simon Lalonde, president of the Saskatchewan Beekeepers Development Corporation.

“You can zoom in and see exactly where all our bee yards are,” Lalonde says. “Some guys want to keep that private.”

The main concern is theft. But Lalonde says fears of theft are largely misplaced, citing just one example of hive theft in the last five years in Saskatchewan. That theft had nothing to do with FieldWatch; it turned out to be the beekeeper’s neighbour.

“The only person who steals a beehive is another beekeeper, and they already know where the yards are.”

Still, many beekeepers remain hesitant to join, and as a result, the Saskatchewan Beekeepers Development Corporation is seeing only 30-50 per cent uptake by beekeepers.

That low uptake is at least partially due to the government of Saskatchewan’s funding regulations. Unlike other provinces, where login-based privacy can be offered, Saskatchewan’s rules require the platform to be fully public. Lalonde believes that decision may have contributed to the slower uptake.

“If you give beekeepers a login and password and give applicators and sprayers their own login, then it would be better controlled. That might have convinced more people to sign up.”

Getting the word out

Walters grants that beekeepers’ reluctance to share their locations is a challenge across the entire network, but adds the painful truth is that secrecy increases the chance of being sprayed. However, the option to mark fields ‘private’ helps ease most of those concerns. In fact, Walters says, lack of awareness is probably a more significant barrier.

“No matter how hard we’ve tried and worked over the years — through the government, through the university, through associations — sometimes there’s just not an awareness that we even exist.”

Organizations in both Manitoba and Alberta are working to raise awareness, with outreach efforts ramping up now that the platform is officially live.

“Signing up is quick and easy if you have access to the internet,” Organic Alberta’s Smith says. “People without internet access can ask us for paper forms.”

Ultimately, the platform is about prevention, Walters says. Any time a chemical is sprayed, whether it’s in the backyard, or from a plane, that chemical can move.

“It’s that impact that we’re trying to minimize,” he says. “At the end of the day, it’s a communication tool — communicating what may be downwind or adjacent or nearby to where you’re spraying. It’s really an attempt to have people work together.”

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New Holland said in a news release that in 2024, Kansas State University and CNH partnered to conduct field trials evaluating the performance of IntelliSense sprayer automation’s nitrogen VRA (variable rate application) function in corn. The findings revealed an approximate 10 per cent savings in applied N compared to a constant broadcast rate.

It can “identify and automatically apply the most appropriate amount of nitrogen within the prescribed rate range according to the assessed plant biomass health,” the company said.

IntelliSense also offers green-on-brown spot spray technology and can detect weeds smaller than two inches in height. It also offers a “base and boost” feature. When making a broadcast application, that setting can boost a localized spray where larger weeds are detected.

IntelliSense will be available as a factory-fit option on model year 2026 Guardian Series front boom sprayers, including the SP310F, SP370F and SP410F.

Another New Holland IntelliSense system, an automation option available for the company’s High-Density (HD) Big Baler, was announced in March as one of three winners of the Davidson Prize.

Those winners are picked from the entries put forward for the AE50, an annual roster of 50 deserving ag engineering products. The Davidson Prize winners are chosen by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) with the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM).

In that system, first announced in January last year, the IntelliSense system’s LiDAR sensor is mounted on the roof of a tractor and emits laser pulses at the upcoming swath, measuring its size, shape and density and adjusting the tractor’s forward speed and steering and the baler feed rate accordingly.

Those adjustments help prevent plugging, increase fuel efficiency and improve bales’ shape and consistent slice size.

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