AAFC Researching Benefits Of Mechanical Weed Control

Apr 19, 2018

Mechanical weed control is gaining in popularity amongst Prairie farmers.

The idea is to use a physical implement rather than herbicide to control weeds.

Breanne Tidemann is a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

She explained the reasoning behind the increased interest.

"It depends very much on the producer and the system that they're working in. For organic producers, it's an obvious control method that can be really effective for them. For conventional producers, in some cases its just trying to diversify the weed management. In a lot of cases it may be due to herbicide resistance and looking at new ways of managing those resistant weeds."

Tidemann says with advancements in technology, this type of weed control can now be used at multiple stages.

"Depending on the implement, there's some that can be used from before the crop emerges up to the 10-node stage of peas...with good crop safety. There's also some that are being developed in Australia that are looking at managing the weed seeds that would be going back onto the field and into the seed bank for the next year."

Source : Steinbachonline

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