Patent ID: 7263210

Claim:
A method of treating the ground and plants as required and in a volume-specific manner, in uniformly or nonuniformly planted areas in which the plants are scanned with a monochromatic pulsed laser beam displaced past the plants and circulating adjacent the plants while affixed to a traveling carrier, the radiation spectrum reflected from the leaf structures being picked up by a sensor and the acquired spectrum being converted into optical signals and these signals being fed to a computer which stores the signal, evaluates them for controlling the application/dosing of the spray agent doses as a function of the vegetation state or the working of the soil and the treatment of the plants as well as the harvest by outputting of switching commands to control the spray device arranged upon the traveling carrier and blowers or working implements, characterized by the following steps a) generating a reference track in the area with a first transit with determination of the positions and localization of characteristic referenced objects adjacent the track; b) scanning the plants in reference to the reference track trace by transmitting an oscillating pulsed laser beam in a somewhat horizontal or slightly inclined path forwardly, laterally and above the carrier in a conical surface segment open in the travel direction and forming a space curve which encounters the plant rows by forward travel of the carrier in a somewhat spiral shape, the laser beam producing in space a highly resolved light point grid or raster upon the plants in different scanning planes; c) starting one or more time-measurement circuits simultaneously in time with the emission of the laser beam according to step b), the time measurement circuits being associated with different level values; d) stopping the time-measurement circuits upon determination of the different reflection levels of the reflected radiation components from the light point grid or raster for separate or common determination of travel data, position data and target location data, picking up the radiation component through the sensor transmitting the radiation and feeding the signals over a receiver unit which determines the transit times of the signals from the signals in the converted data of the computer and depositing the data in a ring memory of the computer; e) determining the morphological and physiological characteristics of the plant stand or of the individual plants from the data according to step d); and f) correcting the position of the spray device and the blower or of the working implements by compensating for deviations in the travel data, position data and target-location data as a result of rolling movements, undulating movements and pitching movements of the carrier, and g) enabling the metering, the nature and extent of the working corresponding to step e) and f) and control of the spray device for applying the spray agent or the working implements.