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Over the past 10 years, a Dublin-based Ag Tech business has developed a device that can be retrofitted to almost every boom spray machine, currently deployed in agriculture in the world. The Technology has particular potential benefit to the Australian and New Zealand horticultural, cereal, and textile farming industries, as the cost of crop protection inputs, soar, climatic derived challenges prevail and the requirements for efficacy in crop protection passes are as critical as ever.
With concern over critical issues such as spray drift, disease and pests that have the potential for catastrophic crop damage, MagrowTec technology gives growers across Australia and New Zealand a highly effective tool to support their efforts in minimizing spray drift, improving profitability and productivity.
Local national crop producers and spraying services are amongst the first of the Technology’s early adopters, having purchased the technology and are now leveraging a plethora of advantages. They are heavily cutting waste that would otherwise be lost to the natural environment. To date, the deployment of the system has made a measurable environmental improvement as damage from sprays drifting on the breeze. The Agricultural industry is recognizing the potential of the system. It has already achieved the highest level of accreditation as a drift reduction technology in Europe and attained the Bayer Crop Science Thrive Award for its potential social impact on sustainability - not just on the environment, but in lowering the cost of crop production.
For example, a Queensland Sweet corn grower, improved spray precision through the adoption of MagrowTec technology in August 2022. A customer conducted crop science studies at farms in major horticultural districts, with the support of the MagrowTec crop science team. Recently a Water Sensitive Paper (WSP) methodology study was undertaken on a mature sweet corn crop. MagrowTec achieved a +33.24% increase in total mean spray coverage. That means a third more crop protection reached its target, as opposed to being lost to the environment. The vegetable grower has observed better drift control and improved coverage to reduce the number of Fall Armyworm pests.
In this year’s summer cropping season, the technology has been deployed in Queensland, NSW, South Australia, and Western Australia, with the first Crop science studies in New Zealand taking place in May 2022. The technology is being assessed in the national cotton industry with interest from some of the most sophisticated producers assessing every possible dimension of the technology, with positive findings so far.
