Abstract
The main objective of this study was to identify optimal burner orientation for a newly designed flame cultivator by quantifying the flame temperature distributions of cross, back, and parallel position of burners at different heights of the soybean canopy (distance from the soil surface). Flame temperatures were measured within-row for three burner orientations at seven propane doses (20–100 kg/ha) and eight different canopy heights (0–18 cm above soil surface). Soybean plants in V3 growth stage were flamed with the same doses and burner orientations, and 28 days after treatment (DAT) crop injury (0%–100%), plant height (cm), dry matter (g) and grain yield (t/ha) were assessed. All three burner orientations had high flame temperatures at lower canopy heights (<6 cm high) that gradually decreased with increasing canopy height (6–18 cm). Measured temperatures ranged from 33 to 234 ℃ for cross flaming, 29 to 269 ℃ for back flaming and 23 to 155 ℃ for parallel flaming, with high variability in temperature patterns. Back flaming generated flame temperatures above 100℃ at a lower propane dose (27 kg/ha) compared to cross and parallel flaming (40 and 50 kg/ha). For all tested parameters, parallel and cross flaming had better impact on soybeans than back flaming, but for weed control in crop rows, cross flaming is recommended.
Highlights
Weeds are one of the greatest limiting factors for an efficient crop production system and are economically more destructive than other pest organisms [1]
The additive model had the lowest Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC) corrected for small sample size (AICc) score for all three burner orientations (Table 1)
For models we used to examine the influence of propane dose and canopy height on within-row flame temperatures for cross, back, and parallel-burner orientation, relative to rows of crops
Summary
Weeds are one of the greatest limiting factors for an efficient crop production system and are economically more destructive than other pest organisms [1]. This is especially true in organic crops where the use of chemicals is prohibited [2]. Cultural practices that row crop producers (e.g., maize, soybean, sunflower) typically use to manage weeds organically, such as crop rotation, delayed planting, or cultivar selection, are usually not efficient enough to control weeds below the economic threshold [5]. Weeds in organic production are largely managed with mechanical cultivation and/or hand weeding. There is an urgent need to evaluate alternative methods that could be utilized for weed control in organic cropping systems [2]
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