Why precision spraying is keying agriculture's Moneyball moment

Greg Kruger pauses for what seems like an eternity during his presentation, but it actually just lasts six seconds. The senior agronomist for BASF's xarvio digital farming division did it to prove a point about BASF's Smart Farming joint collaboration with Bosch that includes precision spraying technology the firms call Smart Spraying. The strategy teams machine-learning algorithms with computer vision to enable "green-on-green" spraying that distinguishes between weeds and crops in-season. Kruger's presentation was part of a BASF media briefing held before this week's Commodity Classic in New Orleans. "In the six seconds that I paused, we've taken 1,000 images [with Smart Spraying] on the boom," says Kruger.