“There is nothing wrong with starting with an old toolbar, as long as it’s in good shape,” says Missy Bauer. “The plan was to strip down the planter and rebuild with proven technologies. We sought out several Farm Journal Test Plot partners to help build the ultimate plot planter.”

From throwing a 5-gal. bucket full of tools into the bed of the truck to a full-blown service truck, farmers can create a mobile shop. Here are a range of possibilities to consider.

“I think the next few years we could have farmers building their own low-cost, open-source weed recognition devices and using green-on-green algorithms for specific weeds such as Palmer amaranth and waterhemp,” says Guy Coleman. His brainchild, OWL, the OpenWeedLocator, uses open-source weed detection technology.