Redekop first began developing solutions for herbicide-resistant weeds in 2015 to help Australian farmers control problem ryegrass in their fields. In 2025, Redekop began a three-year project on EMILI’s Innovation Farms powered by AgExpert to test and validate its Seed Control Unit (SCU) to provide Canadian farmers with third-party research that shows the benefits of this technology in fields here at home.
The SCU is a high-speed impact mill system that is attached to a combine. Weed and volunteer grain seeds enter the unit during harvest, are destroyed by the mill, and are spread back on the ground.
During the 2025 season, a Redekop Manufacturing SCU was installed on one of two John Deere X9 combines used on EMILI’s Innovation Farms. The combine was used in four fields to harvest wheat and canola with the intention to use that combine in the same fields over the three-year project. Throughout the project, drone imagery and weed counts were used to compare areas where the SCU was used with areas where it was not used. EMILI’s Innovation Farms team also used data from John Deere Operations Centre to calculate an ROI around combine productivity and fuel efficiencies when the SCU is used, and to compare the reduction of herbicide applications required in seasons following SCU usage.
“Australia had previously developed several different ways of managing [herbicide-resistant] weeds,” said Dean Mayerle, chief technology officer with Redekop Manufacturing, noting that some methods were not environmentally acceptable, and others were difficult to use.
“By far, seed impact mills were the best agronomic choice for killing weeds by putting that residue back to the soil for agronomic purposes.”
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