System and method for identifying weeds within a field during an agricultural spraying operation

A method for identifying weeds present within a field, the method comprising:

• receiving, with a computing system, an image depicting a plurality of plants present within a portion of the field from an imaging device;
• identifying, with the computing system, a stalk of each plant of the plurality of the plants depicted within the received image;
• determining, with the computing system, a parameter associated with each identified stalk;
• receiving, with the computing system, an input indicative of an intra-row crop spacing of a crop;
• identifying, with the computing system, each plant of the plurality of plants as the crop or a weed based on the corresponding determined parameter and the received input;
• and controlling, with the computing system, an operation of a nozzle of an agricultural sprayer to selectively dispense agricultural fluid based on the identification of each plant as one of the crop or the weed wherein identifying the stalk of each plant of the plurality of plants comprises:
• classifying, with the computing system, each pixel of a plurality of pixels forming the received image as one of a plant pixel or a non-plant pixel based on a color of each pixel;
• identifying, with the computing system, each group of pixels classified as plant pixels and having a ratio of length and width within a predetermined range as the stalk of one of the plurality of plants;
• identifying, with the computing system, a bottom end of each plant;
• identifying, with the computing system, a top end of each plant;
• and forming, with the computing system, a line extending from the top end of each plant to the bottom end of the corresponding plant, wherein identifying the bottom end of each plant comprises:
• identifying, with the computing system, interfaces between groups of pixels classified as plant pixels and groups of pixels classified as non-plant pixels;
• identifying, with the computing system, first and second supplementary angles defined by a given interface of the identified interfaces;
• and determining, with the computing system, a distance between vertices of the identified first and second supplementary angles;
• and when the determined distance is within a predetermined range, identifying, with the computing system, a portion of the given interface extending between the first and second supplementary angles as the bottom end of one of the plurality of plants.