Using See & Spray, ExactShot and Auto Unload on Your Farm

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Tony Kramer: Hi, I'm Tony Kramer, your host of the Agriculture Technology Podcast, and I'm sitting down with agriculture technology and equipment experts to help you enhance your operation for today, tomorrow, and into the future. In this episode, I talk with Jarred Billadeau about his experiences with John Deere See & Spray.

With that, like I said, we are going to be talking See & Spray. Very excited to have Jarred Billadeau in here in studio to talk about his experiences. He's gotten to run it a couple of years now. We're moving into another season, but just kind of learn a little bit about what he's seen, what he's learned, and all of that type of stuff.

So before we dive into that, Jarred, why don't, and actually I should rewind, this is actually your second time on the show talking about See & Spray. About a year ago here, we had a See & Spray panel at a live event that RDO hosted here in, just outside of Fargo, North Dakota. But we wanted to bring you back, talk again about, you added a year of experience under your belt from the last time we talked about this. So before we dive into talking about See & Spray and some of those technologies, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about who you are, give us a little background on your operation, and we'll start there.

Jarred Billadeau: Okay, sounds good. Well, thanks for having me, Tony. I appreciate it. So a little bit about myself. I farm out in west central North Dakota. We have canola, derm, soybeans and corn. So I farm with my dad and brother. There's some uncles and cousins involved as well. So yeah, that's kind of what we do, or that's our background on it. So a little bit about the technology curve. So I think my dad was the first person in the area to kind of have GPS. It was the old Trimble system, which is probably a curse word on this podcast, but that's what it was. The user-friendliness was not the best. Our first true adoption of John Deere technology would have been the old brown box and the AutoTrac, which I suppose would have been in the early, early 2000s, '02-ish. I don't want to date myself, I think I was still in high school at the time. So that was kind of the first adoption of it.

Tony: So let's think about that. Again, it was a while ago. You likely weren't as deeply involved in the operation. Dad was probably making a lot of decisions. But let's go back to when dad decided to start adopting some of those technologies. Back then it was AutoTrac, but then we look at things like yield monitors on the combines, maybe advancing our planters a little bit or things like that. Tell us a little bit about what that looks like on your farm. What encourages you or what entices you guys to adopt those sort of technologies along this path?

Jarred: We have a lot of yield data from the early 2000s that at the time, that's extremely dirty data that's never been cleaned up. But you know, at the time we had no clue what are we going to use this for. You kind of had an idea, but you had no clue what the future held. And that's kind of the way we view some of these technologies today, that as they're being incorporated and you jump into them and some of it might be a little more than you need, but you know, the unknown is kind of exciting for what it brings on that aspect of it. So yeah.

Tony: So now we fast forward to the 2020 time frame. You're moving into year three, I believe, of See & Spray. So having two years under your belt, I can imagine that we've learned some things, maybe changed some practices revolving around it. But let's, so first off, See & Spray. What version of See & Spray? What model? What do we have on the farm that you have now been able to utilize for two years?

Jarred: Yep, so we have the 412R See & Spray Ultimate Package. I really like a lot of the features on the Ultimate. I like the carbon fiber booms. Those things can take a beating if anybody has any questions on it. The boom track system on the carbon fiber booms are really nice. The nozzle spacing is nice. That's a very, very good machine. The dual tank configuration isn't necessarily something we need. You know, we've used it before, but I'd be perfectly fine with a single tank. But this, yeah, the 2026 growing season will be our third year with it. There is something you learn every year, every day you use it, but the technology is great, I will say that, and it's exciting.

Tony: Yeah, and that's actually one of the things that you learn as you go. You had mentioned the See & Spray Ultimate, it comes only as the dual tank configuration. That was obviously what you wanted at the time, but you kind of learned in your operation, it might not necessarily be a configuration that is needed for the chemistries you guys are using and the herbicide programs you're running.

Jarred: So a lot of what we do, a lot of our crops aren't necessarily See & Spray compatible prior to 2026. That's going to change here in 26 a little bit. So we were doing a lot of broadcasting still with our sprayer. And when you do that, mixing up, you know, you're mixing up two batches for every sprayer load. And it gets to be kind of cumbersome. It's not a huge deal, but you know, when you have a 450 gallon tank and you're adding three, 4 chemicals, it doesn't give you a lot of margin for error to add to batch that second load. So the dual tank is something that isn't really necessary in wheat spraying. Canola, when we were doing it on canola. Soybeans, we use See & Spray, but there again, we're just spraying usually a solid round over a Banville tank. So there again, a single tank would be nice. But yeah, that's, moving forward, we'll be doing more See & Spray as we talk about as the show goes on.

Tony: Yeah, and that just kind of goes to show the different, the capabilities. Every farm's herbicide program is a little different. Every crop is different. Not everybody farms the four crops that you're farming. So it really opens that door to a lot of different opportunities. And I know John Deere, And we'll talk a little bit about this a little later in the show, but John Deere is continuing to adapt and improve and make changes to the system as far as compatibility or whatever it may be. So great to hear that you guys are moving into year three with the See & Spray Ultimate. You've seen some successes, some wins over that time. And that's kind of, I want to lead into that is, you know, over the last two years of utilizing the See & Spray Ultimate sprayer, what has been some of your most noticeable or, you know, the biggest successes that you've seen in running the sprayer opposed to prior to the See & Spray technology.

Jarred: Yep, so I should say when I went to the See & Spray unveiling and whenever it was, I think the summer 2023, I remember being down there thinking this really doesn't have a lot of practical use for me in the crops we grow. And when RDO came to us wanting to, seeing if we wanted to partner in the purchase of a See & Spray in what model year 24, I suppose it would have been, I jumped right on board. So I kind of ate my own words on that one really quick. But, you know, one of the surprises or one of the things I'm most that I find is our most success is how predictable your fields are. You look at your weed maps, your weed density maps, and you realize that, wow, there's a, you know, there was a tree I remember removing there 20 years ago, and there's still a lot of weed pressure from that, or an old farmstead or something like that. You know, another obvious answer would be the chemical savings. That is, you know, that's real money there. Dicamba carryover is kind of another one we're starting to see. If you look back at your weed density maps and you look at what you were applying there, you had a little bit of a yield drag on some of your crops. Now, it could be what came first, the chicken or the egg. Is the yield drag there because of the early weed pressure? Or is it maybe because of the dicamba or whatever goes into it? So, yeah, it's interesting. You get to really see how chemical chemistries affect plants in the long-term run where you're trying to raise. And that should be another thing that kind of led me to buy into the See & Spray that you see, okay, where I'm spraying these chemicals, the yield is a little bit less in those areas. So, you know, if we cut back on that across the field where it's not needed, we're going to see savings there as well through increased yield.

Tony: Yeah, absolutely. And that's actually some, there's been some studies going on with third-party research being done with See & Spray that, we don't put chemistry on the crop. It's not stressed as much. It might grow better. It might yield greater, all of that. So it's neat to hear that you guys are potentially seeing that same outcome with that. So yeah, a lot of good successes, it sounds like, over the first two years, whether it be the, you know, the obvious one that everyone always talks about is the product savings, but you've been able, it sounds like you've been able to utilize the the weed density or weed pressure mapping and draw some correlations. So a lot of good successes. Now, obviously, with successes, there's a lot of learning involved, maybe a lot of trial and error or oopsies or things like that. So on that note, what have been some of the biggest or hardest learning curves when it comes to utilizing See & Spray?

Jarred: Yep, so the biggest learning curve is picking the right sprayer tips, which should be an obvious one. I shouldn't even have to say that, but I fell victim to it as well, that you know, get the wrong tips and you realize we might have a little bit of a problem here. And on the flip side of that, there are tips that we found that worked that in theory probably shouldn't work on See & Spray, but they work just as good as everything else. So that's the biggest learning curve. Another one is just trust the technology. It's tuned in, it's going to work. It's hard to do. We're kind of right at the generational where you trust yourself over technology, but the technology is there. So that was a big curve early on to just let trust the machine, let it do its thing, and it's going to work for you.

Tony: Absolutely, that's a big thing. And trusting the technology, leaning into it, relying on it, there's still a factor of the human element there that we want to make sure it's working. And you talk about tips, too. Selecting the right tips, that's something that I think even on a traditional sprayer, outside of See & Spray, I think it's something we're always learning about how those tips affect the actual application, the efficacy of the application. So yeah, a lot of good things. We learn as we go. We make changes, we adapt. So with those things that we've learned over the first two years, some of the successes that we have seen, what has been one of or a couple of your most surprising outcomes in any of the crops that you're utilizing it on? What was something that you kind of, you went out there, you utilized the technology, and you're like, man, I did not expect this outcome.

Jarred: Yeah, so I kind of think of a situation this spring. I have field, or a block of fields that were a little further from home, and we had just seeded them, and I wanted to go out and spray it. And to the naked eye, there wasn't a lot of weeds out there. So I thought, I'll do See & Spray here. And I finished the first field, and it was like a 96% savings or something. And at first, I thought, wow, that's a lot of savings. The technology paid for itself here. And then about when I got done with that thought, my next thought was I'm really disappointed in myself that I thought this field needed to be sprayed. So that was one of the outcomes where I started to second-guess myself and my ability to judge how weedy our fields were. But to earlier, the predictability of your fields was an outcome I didn't expect early on When we first started seeing this, you kind of think you've got those quack grass spots or pigeon grass spots, and you have them, but you don't realize just it's in the exact spot every year, almost, and you see that in your weed density maps and your application maps. And that's interesting, where those maps are going to take us into the future paired with John Deere technology we're seeing slowly trickling out to the marketplace right now. So those types of things are the outcomes I didn't really expect when we went down this journey.

Tony: Those are good outcomes. Glad you're able to see and recognize some of that stuff and utilize the technology to its fullest. And so you talked about, you made the comment about, you know, the continuing to move forward and the future of See & Spray and everything. What is one thing you're most excited about when it comes to the future of this technology in product or chemistry application?

Jarred: So I'm excited about more crops being compatible, especially where we are with canola, which is now a compatible crop in 2026. That's going to be pretty exciting for us. That's a round of application crops. So we're going to see that one pay for itself pretty quick. Faster speeds are another one I'm looking forward to. I do believe it's marked, you know, we can go up to 16 miles an hour now in 2026, I believe. So that's an exciting feature that's going to be there. And hopefully that continues to improve as the years go on. So there's And when you get, we're like building harvest map, harvest data maps of the early 2000s, the stuff we're seeing right now, where's that going to lead in the future and what sprayers are able to do compiled with, you know, in paired, while being paired with the operations center and your agronomist and stuff like that is exciting for what the future might hold. Just from seeing spray.

Tony: You bring up a really good point there. You talked early on about all of the yield maps, the pretty colorful maps that we saw back in the early 2000s, and nobody ever really knew what to do with that map or that data. And you drew that line to where we are today with See & Spray. And that's a neat correlation because now we have people utilizing those yield maps. Maybe they're making map-based prescriptions, seeding prescriptions, or nutrient application prescriptions. We're seeing these weed density maps that's coming off of the See & Spray sprayer that we look at it, of course, you're drawing lines to the predictability of the field and some of that type of stuff, but there might be more to come in the future with those map layers that we're bringing in or the technology we're utilizing with See & Spray. You mentioned a couple things that released here in 2026. Going forward for this growing season, a few new crops are coming out, and one of them big to you, canola, being able to utilize See & Spray on canola, some increased speeds, all of that type of stuff. So we go back to the learning curves and having to adjust or make changes, John Deere is continuing to reinvest and open compatibility, open the door and the windows for more crops to be sprayed with See & Spray, more customers, more farms to be able to adopt this technology based off of what they are growing. So yeah, I'm really excited too, to your point, some of the things that you talked about, the future of See & Spray and where it's going to go tomorrow. Now, with what we have today and the release of the new crops and things like that in 2026, if someone were to come to you, and likely they have in the past two years, but if someone came to you and they were, they're really questioning, is it worth it? Do I get into it? Is it a fit for my farm? What are some of the things that you would share with that curious grower on See & Spray? Again, some of your successes, some of the learning curves, but essentially what would you do to calm their nerves and say, hey, it's probably a fit.

Jarred: I think the first thing I would maybe say to them is, did you feel the same about auto steer in the early 2000s or 2000 teens right in there? And odds are the answer is probably yes. People didn't see how a self-driving combiner tractor is not self-driving, that makes it sound like autonomous, but people didn't see how's this gonna pay. And I would say, See & Spray has done to spraying what auto steer did to driving, to seeding your crops and combining it. The ability to use See & Spray has really made my daily spraying activities a lot easier. There's less of a demand on the people running my water trailer. There's less of a chemical consumption. There's less demand on me trying to mentally figure out what we're doing and worrying about our chemical programs and stuff like that. So that's one of the first things I would point out to somebody that, you know, this This See & Spray is to spray in what auto steer was to drive in your tractor and your combine when that first came out. So yeah, there's some hesitation, but it's here for the future. The consumer of foods wants less and less chemicals sprayed on their food. As a farmer, I feel the same way, that the least amount that can be sprayed out there, the better. And this is a way to do it. So it's good technology. It's good for everybody in agriculture, in my opinion.

Tony: And you bring up a good point there that often some may not think about. So obviously there's the product savings, but you talk about the efficiency gains, the labor shortage help, I guess, where your tender truck isn't running as much water constantly because you're not using as much product. Obviously you're saving money because you're not buying as much chemistry, you're putting as much chemistry down. So there's a lot of different components to it, not just what we were seeing in the field and kind of talking about on the front side of this. So yeah, no, I think it's all great things and you have obviously seen some success over the first two years. We wish you the best going into year three. Hopefully there's some more successes that come, and there's always learning that comes with it. We're always going to learn something new, so it's a great technology to utilize and get into.

Jarred: I'm excited about wheat being an approved crop for 2026 as well, and there's like eight or ten different wheats grown in the United States, so as time goes on, we'll realize which wheats are available, but I raised derm, which is very finicky, on some of the chemicals we apply, so we have to cut back some of our rates just so we don't see any residual effects. And in being able to use See & Spray on that, we're going to be able to maybe go with the full range, just because the amount of damage out in the field isn't going to be near as bad, because it's going to be selectively targeted as opposed to a whole field. So that's going to be nice. And that, you know, whether you believe it or not, evolution is a thing. So weeds find a way to adapt to become resistant to chemicals. So as long as we can use full rates, hopefully that delays the resistance curve, even if it's a few years, but it'll allow technology to come out and control weeds easier that are becoming a challenge to control right now. So that's another benefit I see the potential to See & Spray technology.

Tony: Yeah, absolutely. It's a lot of the different crops that John Deere comes out with and the different technologies. And to your point, chemistry is making a difference. We talk about resistant weeds and the chemistry they’re resistant to being able to utilize full raids, all of that type of stuff, so there's a lot of different things that can be done with the See & Spray system and where it's going to go in the future. Now, seed and spray isn't necessarily your only advanced technology that you're utilizing on the farm. We've also got our planting on the front side and we got harvest on the back side. And so starting with planting, you guys about a year ago adopted ExactShot. Tell us a little bit about your experience utilizing ExactShot on the farm.

Jarred: Yep, so with all the technology we have, ExactShot was the one where I had to sit back and think for a little bit, you know, is this worth the investment? Because I like to say, I know you're saving fertilizer, but am I really saving fertilizer? In our situation, we use it on our corn when we're putting down phosphorus in a form of 10-34-O. And phosphorus doesn't move in the soil like the other crops, or like the other nutrients. So even though my corn might not use a specific drop of 10-34-O that year, it's still there for future years. So that's always the one where I, or that is the one as of today, where it was the toughest sell to me. Now we did go ExactShot, and And for 2025, we continued to use just a simple fertilizer, 1034, with some zinc. And I saw, within the first field, how many gallons of fertilizer we were saving. Didn't see much yield difference by harvest, but I, the more important thing is I did not see a yield drop in using ExactShot. It was, you know, the same or maybe a bushel or two better, but I still had the fertilizer savings. But about a month after planting, I guess the slow and steady wins the race, or however you want to say this saying, I thought, why aren't we using ExactShot technology with fertilizer blends or more expensive fertilizers that contain some nitrogen and some sulfur and some other micronutrients that the plant needs that our soils might not necessarily have? So going into 2026, that's what we're really going to focus ExactShot on and do some trials and stuff like that. So my fertilizer bill in 2026 is going to be right up there compatible to where it would have been stream of 10-34 in the furrow, I expect to see yields increase just because we're going to have a lot more nutrients right on the seed where it needs it. So that's where ExactShot technology really has me excited. That and the operator is filling way less with fertilizer, so you're getting a tank of fertilizer to a seed or a planter of corn. So that's nice. You're not filling nearly as often. I think we were down to 0.8 gallons or something of actual 10-34 O usage per acre last year on our corn, which was the equivalent of five gallons an acre. So there is serious fertilizer savings there. But we'll see, we'll see how it works in 2026 with the more expensive fertilizers.

Tony: Yeah, and you bring up two very, very good points about ExactShot is one, maybe because we're saving so much, maybe we can afford to utilize a higher performing or a better quality fertilizer. And then the efficiency gain, not utilizing as much fertilizer, maybe we can get away from, you know, the 15 saddle tanks on our tractor or pulling the caddy or whatever it may be, we can reduce the amount of product we're actually carrying across the field. Two very good points, and I'm happy to hear that you guys are seeing that with one year of utilizing ExactShot and then moving into 26 here for your second year. So great to hear that you have that technology.

Jarred: Not to cut you off, the first and really kind of the only time we filled the planter with fertilizer this year, we still had it in our head that we got to fill the ExactRate tanks on the side of the 8RX as well. And once we got a quarter done, and I think there was 150 gallons or whatever missing out of the 600 gallon tank on the corn planter, we realized really quickly that it's going to take a long time to get all this fertilizer out of the tractor and corn planter by the time planting is done. And that was an early lesson learned. So it takes a while to use it.

Tony: There you go. Maybe you keep the saddle tanks, or in your case, the 8RX ExactRate tanks on the tractor there, and you fill with fertilizer once at the beginning of the year, and you plant the whole season and not have to fill fertilizer.

Jarred: So that's pretty much all we had to do last year.

Tony: There you go. There's another reason for ExactShot. Now, rounding that out. So we talked See & Spray. front side ExactShot. But you guys also in 2025 with the new combines, you guys adopted the ultimate tech package on the combine, which comes with harvest settings automation and predictive ground speed automation. Tell us just a little bit about your experience this season with those technologies.

Jarred: So that stuff is really cool technology. It did, you know, everything John Deere advertises with the more acres in a day and more improving your yield and the stuff that goes along with that. I can attest, those are pretty accurate numbers to our operation. One thing we learned is that we didn't expect to see with the predictive ground speed in the harvest settings automation. You don't realize how much grain you're throwing over on your combines once the sun starts to set or once the wind goes down. There weren't many nights we turned the combine lights on this year. Once you start to realize that we're starting to throw over half a bushel to a bushel an acre here just to go, you know, get that extra 20 minutes in or that extra 15 acres that night. And it gets to be pretty expensive operating. So I was one of the first ones in the area to start shutting down as we saw those numbers go up. And within a few days, we had a few neighbors that had the same machines. And there weren't many of us that were running late into the night this past fall. So that was kind of an effect I didn't see or didn't expect to see when we bought that technology, but it's really neat to see how much you're throwing over, where you're throwing it over. In the past, the Combine Advisor was always very good at adjusting machines to keep your dockage down, but this is a, this is leaps and bounds better, in my opinion. So it's good technology on the combines. We enjoy that one.

Tony: There we go. Glad to hear that. And again, rolling into season two with ExactShot, season three with See & Spray, and then it'll be season two with the harvest settings automation, predictive ground speed automation. You guys are definitely, again, leaning into that technology, trusting that technology, and doing everything you can to save, you know, be more efficient, more productive, save some expenses or some costs that you guys incur throughout the season. So very cool to hear that. The last thing I want to leave with here, Jarred, is where do you want to see the industry go in terms of technology? What is kind of the long-term pipe dream of Jarred Billadeau and where he would like to see all of this ag tech go?

Jarred: Yeah, so I'm excited about what AI is going to do for agriculture. And AI is a very loosely used term in today's world. And I might be going out on a limb on this one, but I really feel AI in ag is more reactive right now than predictive. And I'm excited about when it becomes predictive for us and what that's going to do for agriculture. And we're going to have to talk a lot about weed density maps and predictability there. But as those layers of technology come into operation center, whatever platform the individual producer uses, to put that information together, and AI is able to start predicting, this could be a wheat patch here, and you're able to start putting chemical inputs in, and what your crops and yields are, and even taking it a step further is what your predictive yield loss could be from using some of these things. AI is going to be exciting about what it's going to spit out and tell you to farm at that time. Now still, you've got to go with your gut in farming. It's hard to turn that over, but I am excited for AI to become predictive and agriculture as opposed to reactive. So that's one thing I'm pretty excited for the future. I'm excited for autonomy as well, don't get me wrong on that one, but those are the two I look forward to the most. And yeah, should be some exciting days ahead of us. What does John Deere's Chief Technology Officer say? Technology has never been this good before and it'll never be this bad again, or however his line is.

Tony: Yeah, absolutely.

Jarred: So we've seen that on our farm and it's that's true. That's the future right there.

Tony: No, I would agree that there's a lot of opportunity down the road for AI. And where we have it today, I mean, obviously, you See & Spray, that is artificial intelligence. There's still some operator, but again, that's, to your point, a reactive kind of AI model where it sees and then it sprays where, you know, in the future, and what you were kind of saying, you know, it'd be cool to have the proactive, the forward-looking, being able to have all of that predicted. So, yeah, I, too, am very excited, I'm excited to see where this industry is going to continue to go. I was talking with others from John Deere at one time, and I was out there and said, you know, I didn't think we'd ever see a self-driving tractor, a fully autonomous tractor in my professional career. And boy, did John Deere prove me wrong. So it's really neat to see how these technologies come out, how they advance, and where we're going to go into the future.

I just want to thank you, Jarred, for taking the time out of your day to sit down and chat with me about your experiences with See & Spray over the past two years and talk a little bit about getting to utilize ExactShot and the harvest settings and predictive ground speed automation on your combines for this first year. So, thanks again for doing this.

Jarred: Yeah, and thanks for everything you guys do at RDO, Tony. You have a great support team behind you. We do pretty much all of our John Deere business with RDO, and that's just been a great partnership over the past really 20 years for us, and we appreciate everything. So thanks to you guys as well.

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