Grainswest - Tech 2026

Tech 2026 grainswest.com 39 “If it’s easy to implement and easy to understand why you do it, the adoption rate will go up quicker.” —Herman Simons E quipment manufacturers have long promised a hands- free future in which autonomous units seed, spray and harvest with little or no human input. At Hannover, Germany’s Agritechnica 2025, the world’s largest agricultural trade show, there was an obvious shift from this fanciful vision to practical implementation. Across all equipment categories, from sprayers and spreaders to headers and tillage tools, manufacturers switched focus away from full autonomy to machines that monitor themselves and make continuous, real- time adjustments. I attended Agritechnica and later discussed these technologies with Herman Simons. As manager of smart agriculture applied research at the Olds College Centre for Innovation, Simons works with companies to test next generation farm technologies to determine which are worthy of adoption. The shift toward practical, self-correcting automation makes sense, he said, but farmers are not ready to step out of the cab, and they still want to feel dirt on their hands. “Producers have been promised an awful lot in the past, and have often been under-delivered,” he said. “They’re hesitant about adopting new technologies.” PRECISION SPRAYING AT SPEED AND SCALE For decades, precision sprayer technology has operated on a set-it-and-leave-it principle. The operator input settings and the system followed these instructions, regardless of what it encountered in the field. In contrast, Agritechnica featured equipment that replaces manually adjusted systems with technology that senses the environment and self adjusts. Agrifac is pushing into the Canadian market with its self-propelled sprayers and camera-based spot spraying system that directly targets weeds. Mounted at one-metre intervals along the boom, AiCPlus cameras activate nozzles accordingly to target weeds and avoid crops. The system can carry out green-on-green and green-on- brown applications. It operates with no subscription fee or per-acre charge. Farmers who share field data with Agrifac receive free algorithm updates in return. “Canadian farmers do not like subscriptions,” said Dereck Generous, Agrifac customer experience specialist. To better serve its western Canadian clients, the Dutch company opened a Saskatoon, SK, facility in July 2025 and counts Manitoba as roughly a third of its Canadian market. Approximately 160 of its machines operate across the country. On self-propelled sprayers, boom movement costs time and accuracy. When booms sway or dip operators must slow down, reducing ground coverage per hour and increasing the risk of spray drift or crop contact. German equipment manufacturer Horsch first addressed this problem with BoomControl Pro Plus, now standard across its entire Leeb sprayer lineup. The manufacturer now enhances this innovation with a radar-based upgrade that won an Agritechnica silver medal for innovation. The system uses four ultrasonic sensors to continuously measure the distance between the boom and the ground. Hydraulic cylinders actively counteract boom swing. The system incorporates four flex points, two on the centre rack and two mid-wing, that allow sections to follow ground contours independently on variable terrain. The next step is to shift from ultrasonic to 3D Bosch radar sensors that model the terrain approximately five to 10 metres ahead of the boom. This allows the system to anticipate changes. “We can act, and we don’t have to react. We know what the future brings,” said Moritz Breh, product manager for Horsch Leeb self-propelled sprayers. Manufactured in Bavaria, Horsch now has more than 100 of these units on the ground between Alberta and Ontario. Most spot spraying systems rely on cameras to identify weeds. Weed-IT’s Quadro instead uses fluorescence-based sensors to detect chlorophyll. Mounted at one-metre intervals along the boom, each sensor covers four detection zones of 25 centimetres. Individual nozzles are activated in the presence of weeds. PR AC T I CAL AUTOMAT ION ByMelanie Epp • Photos courtesy of Agritechnica European ag event features equipment innovations headed for Canada