Mechanical Weed Control

Abstract

Side effects of herbicides and increasing prevalence of organic farming induce the need of further developments in mechanical weed control. Mechanical weed control is mainly associated with cultivating tillage (e.g. tertiary tillage), but also primary and secondary tillage influence weeds. Cultivating tillage is performed in growing crops with harrows , hoes , brushes and a number of special tools for intra-row weed control. Inter-row cultivations have been used in many decades in row crops and perform in general well. To increase their capacity and accuracy, guidance systems are important to steer the hoes along the rows. The success of inter- and intra-row cultivation is highly influenced by selectivity factors. The control mechanisms of all cultivating tillage methods are burring in soil, uprooting, and tearing plants into pieces. Especially for whole crop and intra-row cultivators, successful weed control is highly influenced by appropriate adjustment of the intensity (aggressiveness) of cultivation according to the variations of soil resistance, crop and weed resistance to cultivation and the competitive interactions between crop and weeds. Site-specific weed management aims to identify the spatial and temporal variability of weeds and manage them correspondingly. New technologies for sensing crops and weeds in real-time and robotics allow a precise operation of mechanical tools, to improve efficacy of control and reduce operation costs. Hence in this chapter, implements for mechanical weeding are described together with their options for site-specific weed control strategies. Harrows and rotary hoes are used for whole crop treatment, but it is essential to find the right timing and intensity to obtain the best selectivity and yield response. Different implements attached to the same vehicle are combined together attempting more selective weed control, like the in-row cultivator, the rotary harrow , and the precision hoe . Lately, there are prototypes intending automatic adjustment of the aggressiveness for the spring-tine harrow and autonomous guidance for hoes, thus getting closer to a real-time site-specific weed management approach.