Key takeaways

  • You don’t need a new sprayer to spray only the weeds. A TerraClear Weed Map costs $3.95/acre MSRP and runs on any modern sprayer with section or nozzle control, including John Deere, AgLeader, and CaseIH platforms.
  • John Deere See & Spray Premium is a retrofit kit for 2018-and-newer ExactApply sprayers. Ultimate is factory only. Both carry a per-acre fee on acres the nozzles don’t spray.
  • Aftermarket camera kits from Greeneye, PTx Trimble, and WEED-IT have been quoted at roughly $165,000 to $270,000. A nozzle-control retrofit runs about $25,000 to $35,000.
  • Camera sprayers find weeds during the pass, so you don’t know how much to put in the tank until you’re done. A TerraClear Weed Map shows you before you fill it.
  • If you already run See & Spray, the precision plan runs alongside your cameras. You get the cameras’ real-time detection and know your tank before you leave the yard.

Do you need a new sprayer for targeted spraying?

No. You need a sprayer that can turn parts of the boom on and off, and a way to tell it where the weeds are. Many sprayers on farms today already have section control. A TerraClear Weed Map supplies the second part for $3.95/acre MSRP: it tells the sprayer where to spray, and tells you how much to mix, before you leave the yard.

There are three common routes to targeted spraying, which means applying herbicide only where weeds are growing instead of across the whole field:

  1. A camera sprayer. Cameras on the boom spot weeds and fire nozzles in real time. John Deere See & Spray is the best-known example.
  2. An aftermarket camera retrofit. A kit adds cameras and nozzle valves to a sprayer you already own. Greeneye, PTx Trimble WeedSeeker 2, and WEED-IT sell these.
  3. A precision map on your current sprayer. A drone maps the field, and the map comes with a precision plan, meaning the spray instructions the sprayer runs from. Section control works. Individual nozzle control works better.

The routes aren’t mutually exclusive. Plenty of operations will end up using two of them.

How do the three options compare?

The short answer: a TerraClear Weed Map wins on cost of entry and on knowing what you’re up against before the sprayer moves. At $3.95/acre MSRP, you can map 1,000 acres for a season for less than a fifth of what a See & Spray Premium kit costs (at its 2024-25 list price), and nothing goes on the boom. Camera sprayers win on real-time detection, and if you already own one, the map makes it better. Retrofit kits sit in between.

Comparison chart of a camera sprayer, an aftermarket camera retrofit, and a TerraClear Weed Map by added hardware, up-front cost, when weeds are found, tank planning, and ongoing cost.
Camera sprayer (See & Spray)Aftermarket camera retrofitTerraClear Weed Map on your sprayer
What you needDeere sprayer with ExactApply; Premium retrofits 2018 and newer, Ultimate is factory onlyCompatible sprayer plus the kitAny modern sprayer with section or nozzle control, including See & Spray machines
Up-front cost$25,000 Premium kit (2024-25 list); $750,000 to $900,000 for a factory Premium or Ultimate machineAbout $165,000 to $270,000None if you have section or nozzle control
Ongoing costPer-acre fee on acres the nozzles don’t spray ($5/acre in the US per UMN Extension)Varies; WeedSeeker 2 and WEED-IT list no per-acre fee$3.95/acre MSRP per acre mapped
When weeds are foundDuring the spray passDuring the spray passBefore the spray pass
Tank planningYou don’t know how much to fill until the pass is doneSameField-by-field weed pressure and density before you fill the tank
PrecisionNozzle-level, real timeNozzle-level, real time10cm nozzle accuracy with nozzle control; section width with section control

Prices come from the University of Arkansas, AgWeb, and University of Minnesota Extension sources listed at the end of this article. Dealer quotes vary by boom width and options, so treat these as ranges, not quotes.

What does John Deere See & Spray cost, and do you need a new Deere?

Not necessarily. See & Spray Premium is sold as a precision upgrade for ExactApply-equipped Deere sprayers, model years 2018 to 2026. AgWeb reported the Premium kit at $25,000 retail in 2024 and 2025. See & Spray Ultimate can’t be retrofitted, so it means a new machine.

The University of Arkansas put a base sprayer at about $650,000, a factory See & Spray Premium machine near $750,000, and Ultimate near $900,000.

The per-acre fee is the part farmers ask about most. Since 2025, Deere bills it only on acres where the nozzles stay off. University of Minnesota Extension reported it at $5 per acre. A Canadian custom operator profiled by Sprayers101 in April 2026 paid $6 per acre on unsprayed acres. Deere dropped the fee for fallow acres starting April 1, 2026.

On results, Iowa State tested See & Spray Ultimate on five soybean fields totaling 415 acres in 2024. Herbicide savings ranged from 43.9% to 90.6%, averaging 76%, worth about $15.70 per acre. Deere reported “nearly 50%” average savings across 5 million acres in 2025.

What do aftermarket retrofit kits cost?

Aftermarket kits come in two kinds, and the price gap between them is large.

Camera retrofit kits add their own vision system to your sprayer:

  • Greeneye Technology: about $239,000 for a 120-foot boom, installed, per AgWeb in 2025. It uses two tanks and two lines, so it can broadcast a residual and spot spray a foliar product in one pass. Greeneye reported more than 500,000 acres across 12 states in 2026.
  • PTx Trimble WeedSeeker 2: $180,000 to $270,000 for a full retrofit, no per-acre fee. Uses at-nozzle sensors.
  • WEED-IT Quadro: $165,000 base price, no per-acre fee. Built mainly for green-on-brown, meaning spotting green weeds on bare ground or residue, such as burndown and fallow.

Nozzle-control retrofits don’t see weeds on their own. They give each nozzle its own on/off valve, usually with pulse width modulation (PWM). Examples include Raven Hawkeye 2 ($25,000 to $35,000 by boom length, per AgWeb), Ag Leader Right Spot, and Capstan PinPoint. Paired with a TerraClear Weed Map, a nozzle-control retrofit gets you nozzle-level targeted spraying for a fraction of a camera kit.

That pairing is usually the lowest-cost route to nozzle-level targeted spraying. Check with your dealer that your display and controller can run the kit you’re looking at.

Bar chart of what it costs to start targeted spraying, from $4,740 for a season of TerraClear Weed Maps on 1,200 acres to $750,000 to $900,000 for a factory camera sprayer.

How does a TerraClear Weed Map work with the sprayer you already own?

A drone flies the whole field, not a sample, and captures imagery at 1.5mm resolution. TerraClear’s models find weeds as small as 1/4″ and mark each at a GPS-pinpointed location. You get the map and its precision plan the next day, on average.

The precision plan loads like any other spray file. Your sprayer turns sections or nozzles on where the map shows weeds and leaves them off where it doesn’t. With individual nozzle control, each nozzle switches with 10cm geospatial accuracy. With section control, the sprayer works at section width, so you’ll spray more ground than a nozzle-level setup would. Savings scale with how finely your sprayer can switch.

TerraClear Weed Maps are built to help you use up to 80% less herbicide on post passes, with the same control. How much you actually save depends on weed pressure, your residual program, and your sprayer’s control resolution.

A few other details:

  • TerraClear Weed Maps work in corn and soybeans today.
  • Every TerraClear Weed Map includes stand counts.
  • MSRP is $3.95 per acre mapped, with seasonal pricing incentives. On a 1,200-acre farm, that’s $4,740 at MSRP, with no hardware to buy if your sprayer already has section or nozzle control. See current pricing at terraclear.com/savenow or in the TerraClear app.

For the full per-acre math, see What Targeted Spraying Actually Costs.

Why plan your tank before you spray?

Because a camera sprayer can’t tell you how much to put in the tank until the pass is done. A TerraClear Weed Map tells you before you fill it. That’s more control over what you buy, what you mix, and what you haul back.

Two-lane diagram comparing camera-sprayer-only spraying, where the tank is filled on a guess, with a TerraClear Weed Map workflow, where the tank is filled to fit the field.

Sprayers101 profiled Todd Frey, an Ontario custom operator running See & Spray Premium, in April 2026. On a 125-acre corn field, the machine sprayed 25.8% of the ground. The cameras found weeds hidden in stover that a visual scout had missed. That’s good for weed control, but it meant he couldn’t know how much mix a field would take before he got there. Frey grouped jobs by pre-emerge program and weed spectrum, then booked fields smallest to largest so leftover mix could carry into the next job. His goal was under 5 acres of leftover mix, and that planning had to be done by March.

A TerraClear Weed Map gives you that information ahead of time. It shows weed pressure, meaning how much of the field has weeds, and weed density, meaning how thick they are where they grow. With that in hand you can:

  • Order the right amount of product instead of guessing.
  • Fill the tank to fit the field instead of hauling back leftovers or making an extra trip to refill.
  • Decide which fields to hit first, and which ones need a broadcast pass anyway.
  • Sit down with your agronomist and pick the product that fits the weeds you actually have. Spot spraying can make a stronger, pricier product affordable when it only goes on part of the field.

Already run See & Spray? A TerraClear precision plan runs alongside your See & Spray cameras. The cameras keep doing real-time detection on the pass. The map tells you, before you leave the yard, how much product each field needs, so you fill the tank to match. Deere’s See & Scout, coming on 2027 machines and Gen 1 Premium and Ultimate plans, will build weed pressure maps from the sprayer’s own cameras. Those maps still come from driving the sprayer through the field, so you won’t have them before your first fill. A TerraClear Weed Map comes before the sprayer moves.

Is a TerraClear Weed Map better than a camera sprayer?

It depends on two things: how many acres you spray, and whether you already own the hardware.

A camera sprayer makes more sense when:

  • You’re buying a new sprayer anyway and spray enough acres to spread the cost. Arkansas estimated a See & Spray Premium machine needs roughly 13,400 to 20,400 acres to break even at $20 per acre herbicide, and Ultimate far more.
  • You want detection in the same pass with no separate flight.
  • You already own a Deere sprayer that qualifies for the Premium kit.

A TerraClear Weed Map makes more sense when:

  • Your sprayer already has section or nozzle control and you’d rather pay $3.95/acre MSRP than make a six-figure purchase.
  • You want to know weed pressure and density before buying and mixing product.
  • You want stand counts from the same flight.
  • You want to try targeted spraying on some fields before committing to hardware.

Both together make sense when you run See & Spray and want to know how much to fill, which product to use, and which field to hit first before the pass. The precision plan runs alongside the cameras.

What limits every kind of targeted spraying?

Every method has the same ceiling: if weeds cover most of the field, there’s not much ground to skip.

  • Weed pressure. University of Wisconsin weed scientist Rodrigo Werle reported 70% to 76% foliar herbicide savings in soybeans at low pressure, and about 2% at high pressure, because the nozzles rarely shut off.
  • Your pre-emerge program. Targeted spraying cuts the post pass. A strong residual keeps post pressure low, which is where the savings come from.
  • Wind and nozzle choice. Research Werle presented found 3 to 4 mph of wind can move a single-nozzle spot application off target. The same program recommended 12 to 15 mph travel speeds to limit boom bounce.
  • Escapes. No camera or map finds every weed. Low detection sensitivity on camera systems has been linked to a growing weed seedbank over three years in Arkansas research. Scout after the pass and plan for follow-up.

Drone maps have a timing limit too. The map shows the field on the day it was flown. Weeds that emerge after the flight aren’t on it, which is why TerraClear delivers the map the next day on average.

How do I get started?

Run your own fields through the Weed Savings Calculator using your chemical and application prices. Then read Weed Mapping 101 for how the map and precision plan work, or see how TerraClear weed management works.

Ready to map? Buy Map Acre Credits in the TerraClear app, or talk to a TerraClear rep about which fields to map first.

Sources

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