Intelligent or sensor-controlled sprayers have the potential to improve pesticides application efficiency, reduce labor, and lessen waste. Brent Warneke, Senior Faculty Research Assistant in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University is testing LiDAR sensors that can sense a plant and adjust the amount of spray based on the coverage area needed. Brent also addresses the best time to use biologicals based on disease pressure, the benefits of drones in farming, and simple ways to improve spray efficiency with an air blast sprayer. Resources:         REGISTER: April 12, 2024 | Tailgate | Fungicide Spraying: Reduce Your Carbon Footprint & Financial Burden 2: The Goldilocks Principle & Powdery Mildew Management 79: Grapevine Fungal Diseases 117: Grapevine Mildew Control with UV Light Airblast 101 Brent Warneke Google Scholar Brent Warneke LinkedIn How to Do Regular Maintenance on Air Blast Sprayers to Ensure Proper Care for Specialty Crops Oregon State Fruit and Ornamental Disease Management Testing Program Oregon State University Nackley Lab Pesticide Redistribution and Its Implications on Pesticide Efficacy Sensor Sprayers for Specialty Crop Production Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript Craig Macmillan  0:00  Our guest today is Brent Warneke. He is senior faculty research assistant in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University. And today we're going to talk about some really cool stuff and agricultural technology. Thanks for being on the podcast, Brent.   Brent Warneke  0:11  Hey, thanks for having me.   Craig Macmillan  0:12  I saw you speak at the 2023 Sustainable Ag Expo in San Luis Obispo. And I was very inspired by your talk, I thought things that you were doing were really interesting. And I thought your message is really, really great, what kinds of things you've been working on.   Brent Warneke  0:25  I've been in this position at Oregon State University for the last five years. And we really started with investigating this sprayer, which we'll get into called the intelligent sprayer, and how it has potential to increase efficiency in terms of pesticide applications, from everything from labor to spray volume to pesticide quantity, and waste. And that's something that we've covered and in a lot of different ways that we'll go into here.   Craig Macmillan  0:55  And so, you know, obviously, this is a viticulture oriented show, but you've done this in other crops as well.   Brent Warneke  1:01  Yes. So I work with specialty crops in general, the kind of main categories that I focus on are wine, grapes, blueberries and nursery crops.   Craig Macmillan  1:11  Cool. What is an intelligent sprayer? Let's start there. What is it? What's it composed of? How does it work? What are the benefits?   Brent Warneke  1:19  Yeah, so the intelligent sprayer is one of a group of sprayers that I termed sensor controlled sprayers. These are sprayers that have sensors mounted on the sprayer, and they're able to sense objects in our in our case plants, and adjust the amount of spray they're applying based on those, what they're seeing. And the intelligent sprayer is is a kind of more advanced sprayer that uses a LIDAR sensor, which is a laser sensor, that's able to scan the plant canopy with millimeter resolution, and a