The current pandemic has influenced the need for responsible food production and an increase in food security. To develop new partnerships and connections towards achieving this goal, The 2021 World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit is a vital platform that helps create new business partnerships and hasten the pace of innovation to develop a more sustainable, resilient, and secure food system. It is a virtual event to be held on March 9 and 10, 2021.
Crop.Zone is a German startup and among the companies to pitch ideas at The 2021 World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit.
The CEO of Crop.Zone, Dirk Vandenhirtz, says: “If you look at the farming worlds and chemical herbicide, there are a few things happening. First, farmers in the European Union are literally losing products monthly because of the Green Deal and other similar initiatives to reduce chemical use. In countries like Australia, farmers are facing a 25% yield loss because of resistant weeds.”
According to the Grains Research and Development Corporation, in 2016, weed control estimated cost by Australian grain growers was $3.3 billion annually. The report further states that it affected the yield rate of about $33 per hectare as farmers spends $113 on weed control per hectare. This high cost of weed control is due to herbicide resistance, resulting in using additional herbicides and other methods of weed management.
According to Dirk Vandenhirtz, herbicide resistance has continue to spread, eliminating the efficiency of some herbicides. At the same time, new product development to replace the inefficient ones has reduced.
He further states that “In 2017, there were 42 glyphosate-resistant weeds worldwide. It’s an international issue that also affects the U.S. farmers, and there is need to get alternative solutions.”
Hybrid Herbicide Clone
The Crop.Zone process is a mix of non-toxic liquids (Hybrid Herbicide clone) and the use of low-voltage electricity to establish an efficient solution in combating weeds and managing pre-harvest desiccation.
Vandenhirtz explains how the process works, “If electricity is applied to plants, it destroys the chlorophyll and the water in-take system of the plant. The challenge is the huge amount of energy needed for this process. We have discovered that plants can be made more sensitive to such treatments with electricity by spraying a very light saline solution on them beforehand,”
“Our Volt-Fuel increases the plants’ conductivity and, therefore, we can to apply 10 times less energy for crop desiccation. This means Crop.Zone uses less energy. The non-toxic conductive liquids, which fall into organic farming guidelines, have an extremely low impact on the environment.”
Crop.Zone System Components
The system consists of two attachments. The Crop.Zone electrical application unit fitted to the rear of the tractor and the standard sprayer attached to the front of the tractor. The tractor’s PTO shaft drives a generator which transforms the mechanical energy into electrical energy. The electrical energy is then distributed to electronic unit converters that transform low voltage to high voltage.
Launching the System
The company is working in association with interested industrial partners and farmers to test the final design in the field later this year. For this purpose, the CEO stated that they will build 25 systems, operate them with farmers and offer scientific support at the same time.
The system is planned to be commercially released in 2022. According to Vandenhirtz, the Company will employ a team of experts who will address questions that need to be answered because an individual cannot answer all of them.
The CEO is a biologist with expertise in plants. Other team members include mechanical engineers, agronomists, computer scientists, mechanics, electric engineers, and electricians.
He says, “We understand the problem and want farmers to know that there is an alternative.”
