It’s planting season, which means a lot of the technology we spotlight on this program is being used in the field as we speak. I paid a visit to Eagle, Wis., farmer Tyler Troiola who’s using John Deere See and Spray for the first time this growing season. He says it took his dealer about 2 solid weeks to install the system on his 2018 John Deere sprayer.  

“It's the Premium kit. So, I bought a used John Deere sprayer. It's not new so you can't get Ultimate on anything that's not from the factory. So, it's a Premium system that they added on. I think the Ultimate is the better system, but it wasn't in my budget. So, we're going to start with the Premium and go from there.”

“I'm kind of hoping that it'll pay for the difference from the sprayer I traded into this sprayer. I kind of hope it'll not in the first year, but over the depreciation schedule or the life of the sprayer, I'm hoping that the chemical savings will pay for the cost of the technology. I'm not really looking at it from a custom spraying standpoint, but more from just a farmer standpoint. If you can save X amount of dollars on your chemicals every year, you should be able to apply that to the technology and invest in technology instead of invest in a jug of chemicals.”

Troiola broadcast applied herbicide with the sprayer before planting. He’s going to use See and Spray on his second pass to target weeds sometime in June, and he says technicians from his dealership, Sloan Implement, will help calibrate the system beforehand. We’ll check back in with him this summer to see how it works.