Why are Farmers Switching to Spot Spraying Before Sowing — And Saving up to 80% on Herbicide
Every season starts the same way: patches of weeds scattered across bare soil, waiting to compete with your crop from day one. The traditional answer has always been to blanket spray the whole field with glyphosate. Effective but expensive, slow, and hard on the soil.
There’s a better way. And it’s simpler than most farmers expect. Click here to watch a short video showing how to create a Green-on-Brown Spot Spraying Prescription Map in Guided Mode.
Target Only What Needs Spraying
Green-on-Brown spot spraying means treating only the green patches on bare soil before sowing, not the entire field. A drone flies over, captures multispectral imagery, and CultiWise identifies exactly where the weeds are. The result is a precision prescription map that tells your sprayer to treat only the areas that actually need it.
No more spraying clean soil. No more wasting product where there’s nothing to kill.
The Numbers Speak for Themselves
Up to 80% less herbicide. That’s not a marginal improvement, it’s most of your input cost for this pass gone. And the savings don’t stop there. Think about the time your machine spends in the field. Fewer refills means less water used and fewer stops. Fewer stops means faster coverage, lower fuel consumption, and less wear on your equipment.
Your sprayer finishes the job and moves on, it’s that simple.
The drone side is just as quick. Coverage depends on what you’re targeting, larger weed patches or you need plant-level detection of individual weeds. Either way, 150 hectare field can be mapped in one hour. Once uploaded to CultiWise, the spot spray map is generated in seconds. The agronomist just chooses the product dose, and the software handles the rest, producing a prescription map compatible with all major machine brands.
One thing to check before you start: your sprayer needs to be equipped with section control or single nozzle control to execute a spot spray map. And when exporting the map, always use the Shapefile (.shp) format — it’s the only format that gives your terminal the precision spot spraying requires. ISOxml works for many applications, but for spot spraying it simply doesn’t read the map in enough detail.
The map also tells you exactly how many liters you’ll need to fill your tank before heading to the field. No guessing, no leftover product to deal with at the end of the run. What would be the point of spraying less if you poured the savings straight back out of the tank? This way the savings are real, planned before you even start the tractor.
You don’t need to be a tech expert. You set your goal, CultiWise guides you through every step. The whole process from flight to finished map is designed to fit into your day, not take it over.
Better for Your Soil, Better for Your Crop
When you reduce the total herbicide load going into the soil, you’re creating a healthier environment for your crop to germinate and establish. Less chemical stress on soil biology means better conditions from day one, giving your crop a cleaner, stronger start.
A clean field before sowing sets the tone for the entire season. And now you can achieve that clean field with a fraction of the inputs.
One More Option for Advanced Sprayers
If your sprayer is equipped with section control and PWM nozzles, CultiWise can take things a step further. Instead of a simple on/off map, you can apply two rates across the field: a lower background dose for the whole area and a higher targeted dose for hard-to-control/perennial weeds like Field Thistle (Cirsium arvense). Same pass, more precision, even better results.
Alternatively, you can target only hard-to-control perennial weeds with a spray, while managing small annual weeds mechanically if your seed drill features a cultivation attachment.
Ready to see what spot spraying can do for your operation?
Sign up for free on CultiWise, or reach out to our team — we’re happy to answer your questions or just have a conversation about what’s possible on your fields.
