“We’re seeing a return on investment everyday”
Cleaner paddocks, healthier crops and significant chemical and labour cost savings are just some of the benefits Australian leafy green vegetable grower Steve Kluck is enjoying since adopting the ARA Sprayer and its AI spot-spraying technology on his farm.
Steve grows cabbages, lettuce, celery, kale and wombok at Limit Farms in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley, where weed control has historically been a time consuming and costly challenge.
Steve says the ARA has revolutionised his weed control strategy and is now an integral part of his toolkit.
“Before we had the ARA we were mechanically weeding everything, doing a lot of hand weeding and using more pre-emergent herbicides, which can have a stunting effect on the crops and reduce yield,” Steve explains. “Weed pressure is a big issue for us and we had been looking at various options for several years. We settled on this machine due to its ability to cover the ground fast and efficiently.”
The Lockyer Valley is widely known as “Australia’s Salad Bowl” for its reputation as a
premier vegetable growing region. Steve Kluck is a fifth generation farmer, managing 400 hectares across eight different sites.
Limit Farms supplies produce lines to multiple supermarkets, processing customers and fresh produce markets along Australia’s east coast.
Steve credits the ARA for helping reduce his reliance on pre-emergent herbicides, improving the overall health of his crops in the process, especially in the second crop for a season.
“It’s allowed us to not use pre-emergent herbicides in a lot of our crops. We can just go through and spray the gaps with an organic registered product which is a great thing for us going forwards,” Steve says.
“We’re not getting buildups in the soil; we haven’t got that leftover herbicide.
“A weed-free crop will yield better, it’s more uniform and it’s a cleaner crop to harvest and market.
“It's also reducing our weed load over time, so every year we're knocking out more weeds, there's less going to seed, so long term we should see less and less pressure from weeds.”
Farm Concepts Director Braden Hellmuth, an Australian distributor of the ARA Sprayer, says it’s rewarding to see how the ARA’s plant-by-plant AI spot spraying technology can help growers like Steve solve various challenges.
“The thing I love the most about the ARA from Ecorobotix is how we can change the way a farmer is using their traditional chemistry,” Braden explains. “The sprayer can operate down to a six-by-six centimeter spot, which allows us to get in and
get those weeds that are around the plant without creating chemical stress on the plant that’s going to hold it back and reduce its yields.”
The other significant benefit Steve Kluck is enjoying at Limit Farms is the reduction of time spent removing weeds with traditional methods, especially when all the crops are irrigated using drip tape.
“Avoiding the tape while removing the weeds is very challenging,” Steve explains. “As a business we’ve always been focused on having clean farms so we’ve spent a lot of
money and time removing weeks through mechanical means and hand weed chipping, at a fair cost to our business. The number of people with the skillset required is declining too.
“Now those hours have significantly reduced. We grow vegetables all year round and nearly every planting is sprayed with the ARA, so it’s become an integral part of the business that we’d struggle without.”
Having used the ARA for almost 12 months, Steve says it’s also an easy and simple
machine to use and one he’d happily recommend to other vegetable growers.
“I think we're seeing a return on investment every day for this machine,” Steve says.
“If you do your sums right, you’d be surprised how quickly it will pay itself off in a medium sized farming business.
“It's going to make our life easier going forwards and probably open a few more opportunities in how we grow crops and manage our cropping.”
For more information on how the ARA Sprayer could transform your farm, contact Farm Concepts.
