The Evolution of Spray Technology and the Tech Stack

Index:

Over the last 60+ years, the method for protecting crops and yield has been foliar applications of crop protection products.

In large-scale row crops, managing weeds, insects, or disease has historically meant relying on foliar applications. While seed traits, seed treatments, and in-furrow applications have increased in utilization, the primary mechanism for crop protection remains the traditional sprayer — moving chemistry from a tank through a complex system of plumbing and nozzles.

At its core, the ideal outcome for any sprayer applying spray solution boils down to optimizing outcomes across three pillars: agronomic, economic, and environmental.

First, there is the agronomic mandate is for the system to achieve efficacious control of the target pest to protect yield potential.

Second, it must do so as economically as possible, optimizing the cost-per-acre by maximizing spray solution to the target and minimizing waste.

And finally, there is a demand on environmental focus, requiring farm operators, and the companies supporting them with products and solutions, to mitigate off-target drift.

These have always been known, but the emphasis on each, and the technology to support each, has improved over the last 60+ years.

In the 1970’s, crop protection application was highly inefficient.

Application equipment typically involved narrow 30 to 60 foot steel booms pulled by tractors at slow speeds, lacking things today like automated section control, boom levelling or advanced nozzles. Droplet size was heavily dictated by line pressure, which meant a high volume of atmospheric "fines" prone to drift, or overly large droplets that bounced off the crop canopy. The inefficiency was compounded by lesser formulation technology, such as wettable powders that routinely clogged lines, or more volatile, heavily petroleum-based Emulsifiable Concentrates (ECs) that carried high solvent loads. They lacked the advanced polymer adjuvants and modern chemistry, which meant early tank mixes struggled with leaf retention and plant penetration.

Driven by regulatory and environmental pressure, plus the scale up of traited crops, the 1990s and 2000s moved crop protection emphasis more toward efficiency and user safety.

From a formulation perspective, the more crude solvents and wettable powders gave way to better water-based formulations like Suspension Concentrates (SCs) and dust-free Water Dispersible Granules (WDGs). Micro-encapsulation and suspoemulsions allowed multiple modes of action to be formulated into a single jug. Adujvant and surfactant based technology improved as well, decrease leaf bounce and drift. Simultaneously, application hardware evolved from basic mechanical rigs into high-capacity, self-propelled sprayers with 90 to 120 foot booms and the launch of Pulse Width ModulationPlus, the integration of GPS guidance and automatic rate controllers, enabling automated section control to minimize overlap. Together, these advancements improved operational aspects of crop protection, along with safety, delivery and ultimately in-field outcomes for farmers.

None of these technologies are used in isolation — all of them deliver incremental advantages to farmers achieving better agronomic, economics and environmental outcomes when used simultaneously.

In fact, they are “stacked” on one another to ensure better results are achieved:

Still, there were, and remain, shortcomings.

The crop protection and equipment industries, while constantly improving, are still far from perfect, even today.

Depending how you want to calculate and think about effectiveness, you can reference work suggesting a range of 30% of 75% of crop protection applied doesn’t reach it’s target:

That leaves ample room for improvement. But, like most things in agriculture, there is no silver bullet.

That’s where the full Spray Tech Stack comes in.