Meet the Robot Changing How Illinois Farmers Fight Weeds

What if your sprayer never needed a driver and used 90% less chemical in the process? That's not a far-off vision. It's already rolling through cornfields across the Midwest.

On the latest episode of IL Corn TV, host Shane Gray welcomed Taylor Wetli, US Commercial Manager for Solinftec, to talk about the Solix Autonomous Sprayer — a solar-powered, AI-driven robot that's quietly rewriting the rules of weed management.

Solix moves across fields on a 40-foot boom equipped with eight cameras, each controlling three independent nozzles. Onboard, Solinftec's proprietary "Alice AI" runs in real time, identifying weeds among corn and soybean plants at every growth stage and in varying soil and tillage conditions. The result? The robot sprays everything that isn't the crop and only that. Depending on weed pressure, growers are seeing chemical reductions anywhere from the seventies to the high nineties, all from a unit with just a 56-gallon dual-tank system.

Because it's solar-powered and charges a lithium-ion battery as it works, Solix can run day and night. That expanded time window is one of the key advantages Wetli highlighted — the ability to get out early, spray often, and never let weeds like waterhemp get a competitive foothold in the field.

The fleet model is another mindset shift. Rather than one massive machine covering thousands of acres, Solinftec recommends one unit per 300–400 acres. A 2,000-acre operation might run four or five units simultaneously, with the added resilience that rain or downtime in one area doesn't shut down the whole operation.

The technology is currently available in about a dozen states, and Solinftec is actively working with organizations like the Association of Equipment Manufacturers on targeted application standards that could tie into future farm bill language.

Watch the full episode below to learn more about Solix.