Jerry Brightbill

Video Overview

For West Texas cotton farmer Jerry Brightbill, who farms 4,500 acres of irrigated cotton with his brother, water is the most critical aspect of his growing operation.

“There are five things that make yield,” he says. “Water, water, water, water–and I don’t know what the fifth thing is.”

When it comes to spraying, he is more interested in kill than in cost.

“The weed is a moisture sucker,” he explains. “In reality, we probably lose more water to weed than we do to the crop.”

When Brightbill first learned about the MagGrow system, he knew he had to try it.

His first trial compared MagGrow to a conventional sprayer using the same rate of application. Then he began cutting rates on the MagGrow system to 75% and then to 50%. He was surprised to see that the drop to 50% caused no difference at all in the kill rate. In fact, he was getting better coverage with less chemical on a plant than he was at 100% with a conventional sprayer. With the MagGrow system, a sprayer can cover 240 acres per tank versus a conventional sprayer that covers 120 acres.

“After we saw that,” he says, “the rest of our acres were all sprayed with 50% of chemical. If you can go over twice the acres with the same tank, with the cost of these sprayers and the depreciation per hour, that’s a lot of money.”

MagGrow also addressed Brightbill’s previous drift issues. Because there’s almost always a wind blowing in West Texas, drift when spraying can be a real problem. MagGrow takes the chemical right to the plant in optimal-sized droplets that penetrate the canopy to hit the targeted weed, eliminating drift.

“I think it’s going to revolutionize all spraying of any type of insecticide or herbicide on agricultural products of any kind,” Brightbill says. “I killed weed. I saved some chemical. I covered more acres. I don’t how much plainer that can be to anybody. That’s three savings. If just one of them worked, I’d be happy. We need to educate as many people as we can about MagGrow. Because they’ve all got the same problem. They say, ‘I can’t kill the weed.’ Well, I think you can now.”