When John Deere first introduced its See and Spray green-on-green targeted spraying system, it was only available for corn and soybean crops, which dominate most of the U.S. Midwest.
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.
Read Also
How a single-store family-owned ag equipment dealership prevails
A family-owned, single-store farm equipment dealership is increasingly rare. But the Sowa family at Wadena, Sask., say they have no plans to change thebusiness model.
“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.
