The “precision placement of chemicals” and “consistent application within a targeted coverage” area that Ken Giles spoke of 5 years ago is a reality today, and is often referred to as “site-specific management” or, in some cases, “variable-rate application.

Richard Preston says his Kentucky grain farm represents the “worst-case scenario” for efficiently and responsibly spraying chemicals. His fields are located between creeks and timber and back up to ever-growing residential areas near Elizabethtown, Ky.

There’s just no winning with weeds. If we don’t kill them, they’ll choke out our crops and devastate yields. In earlier days, we removed them by labor intensive hoeing and cultivating. More recently we started spraying herbicides to control them. Unfortunately, this unwanted vegetation figured out how to beat the most common of the weed killers being used, leaving us with as big of a problem, we had before we started spraying.