They are seven feet tall, four feet wide and three feet deep, and they’re here to help with this year’s crop.
They are large vending machines that will be located in farm service centres across Western Canada, dispensing herbicides instead of pop and chocolate bars.
On April 18, DuPont will introduce a system that when fully approved for all of its tank mixed herbicide combinations will offer grain producers the ability to custom blend their own herbicides in up to 50 formulations, using six dry, concentrated products contained in specialized vending machines.
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Jay Elsberg of DuPont said 18 of the machines will be placed in Western Canada, although not all of them will offer the same six chemical choices because of regional weed issues.
“This is an international first. We will be able to offer producers the ability to create blends based on their weed needs, growth stage and timing of application,” he said.
“There’s 15 million acres of (wild) buckwheat out there (on the Prairies). But how many have stork’s bill and cleavers with that? You don’t need to treat it all for those two. It means you have choices about what you are going to apply to a crop.”
The machines allow producers to specify field size, sprayer capacity and application rate. They will also include the name of the field on the custom-made label.
John Waterer of Cargill said he is excited to get three of the machines into the company’s farm supply stores this year.
“This type of delivery tool is the future of providing chemical to growers,” he said.
The computerized system allows producers to buy the right amount of an active ingredient for each field rather than buying prepackaged boxes, jugs or bags and measuring out the correct amounts in the field.
Waterer said this is a significant labour issue for his customers.
In a trial of the machines last season, he said, a half-ton truckload of individual bags of Group 2 herbicide products were delivered to a southern Alberta farmer seeding 12,000 acres, each sized and labelled for a specific field.
“He was very happy. This is a big step forward not only from a skilled labour standpoint, but for the environment.”
Waterer said the system also avoids wasting product.
“In the past you might have needed a Buctril with a little more bromoxynil and a little less MCPA, but you didn’t have a choice to mix it yourself. This is that ability. Just the right product for your field in just the right amount,” he said.
“I hope this is the start of the end of the one-size-fits-all approach to herbicides.”
Elsberg said the machines aren’t limited to DuPont products. As well, the company will evaluate the machine’s popularity this year.
The company based the new machines on 1,600 similar dispensers that meter out a single product. It began trials with two-product machines and their success prompted the six-product systems.
“We’ve been doing the (field crop) trials with PMRA (Pest Management Regulatory Agency) to get approvals for all of the combinations of herbicide formulations that the software will create, and it’s going really well,” he said.
Waterer said the equipment will also cut retailers’ costs.
“We don’t get caught with more product than we need this way. At the end of the season we don’t have pre-package boxes and half packages. It’s good for farmers and retailers,” he said.
“For companies like ours with 44 agronomists providing active field management and consulting to our customers, this is a perfect fit for providing products that producers need, rather than that shotgun approach.”
In coming seasons the machines are expected to be approved for mixes that include Group 4 products and potentially others.
