A summer of testing in fields and warehouses has refined the Refine machine.
Federal regulators have approved six products for blending in DuPont’s herbicide vending machines, with more to come by spring.
Dupont’s Precision Pac herbicide system promises no more jugs, boxes and leftovers and just the right amount of herbicide for the job, delivered through a computerized vending machine.
It also offers custom tank mixes designed to kill the weed mix of a particular field.
The system was introduced this past spring in its basic form to allow DuPont to work out the bugs in a real world environment. At that time it was limited to blending only two of DuPont’s granular, dissolvable broadleaf herbicides and metering them in portions to meet any field size up to 320 acres.
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It was used mainly to provide the right amount of a product, such as Refine, for a given tank or field.
Last season it was found in only a few farm supply dealer locations across the West.
Next season, between 70 and 100 Precision Pac machines will create custom sized packages of DuPont sulfonylurea products like Refine, Express, Harmony and Triton and up to two others from third parties in federally approved mixes for prairie farmers.
“That means someday 15 to 20 combinations for different weed control needs,” said Scott Hollick of DuPont.
This year, Hollick has been test-driving the vending machines with farmers and herbicide dealers on weeds like dandelion, volunteer canola, wild buckwheat, narrow leafed hawks beard and smartweed.
“(The machines) take up less space in dealers’ warehouses. That’s a big thing. For farmers they don’t buy more than they need for each field and they get just what they need for weed control,” he said.
For 2009, producers will get as many as nine Pesticide Management Regulatory Authority-approved blends of sulfonlyureas, with six already getting the green light.
“We’ll see more in 2010 and 2011,” he said.
Agronomist Steve Schmidt of Wendland Ag in Waldheim, Sask., said the machine is a good fit at his company’s crop supply business.
“It does take up less space here,” he said. “But you can see the little bag you get to fill your sprayer with, the lack of packaging with the system. No jugs to return to us, no cardboard burning in the fields or blowing around on you, I’m liking this.”
The two metre high machine in the Wendland warehouse holds six 16 kilogram bulk bags of herbicide. A computer control, designed to be fail safe, meters out and blends herbicides prescribed by computer software operated by Schmidt.
The herbicides fall by gravity into producer bags that are sized specifically for individual fields and the weeds they contain.
“We can scout the weeds, come back and enter the information and get prescription and quantity that is just right for that field,” he said.
Eli Wollman of Riverbend Colony near Waldheim, Sask., said the labels produced by the machine’s printer for each producer bag make it easier to keep sprayer loads separate.
“Way too easy,” he said. “We like that. I have different guys running the sprayers. The bag has a label with the field and product clearly marked on it. For those full (tank) loads, it’s just mix the bag with water and go spraying 320 acres. Little fields, you just need to mix what you need.”
With 13,000 acres to cover, some of the land is in different municipalities and contains unique weed problems. Wollman said he appreciated the utility of the DuPont invention.
“And no leftovers in tanks or in the shed,.”
Schmidt said the machine worked equally well for smaller producers.
“The folks with small fields or irregular land this summer were able to buy that 68 acres worth of product without buying two jugs that cover 40 acres each, or cutting their rates.”
Hollick said dispensing appropriate amounts means less waste and fewer disposal concerns for farmers.
Producers can get a closer look at the machine at the DuPont booth at the Agri-Trade farm show in Red Deer, Nov. 5 to 8.
