Deeping St James firm Garford Machinery Ltd walked away from the LAMMA2014 show with two major awards.
The prizes in the Innovation competition were in recognition of the firm’s Robocrop Spot Sprayer.
The equipment, the latest in the Garford Robocrop Family, received both the Maurice High Trophy and the IAgrI Ivel Award for Best New Product or Innovation (Environmental in the second prize).
Managing director Philip Garford said: “Being a LAMMA exhibitor since almost the start of the show, LAMMA awards are always that bit more special to us at Garford’s and we are thrilled to receive both awards.”
The equipment uses the Robocrop imaging system, which, in the case of the spot sprayer, first defines the position of the crop and then looks for clumps of weeds growing between or among the row. It then targets weeds with a special jet of weedkiller in order to kill the weed, but avoid contact with the crop.
A company spokesman said: “In this way, problem weeds can be controlled with extremely low rates compared to overall spraying, often only 1 or 2 per cent of the overall rate.”
The Robocrop Spot Sprayer has been in development over the last few years, prompted by the impending withdrawal of key herbicides, particularly those used for volunteer potato control in onion and carrot crops, though it can be used in other crops with a regular crop row structure.
