Thermal weed control technologies for conservation agriculture—a review

Bauer, Martin; Marx, Christian; Bauer, Fabienne V.; Flury, Dominique M.; Ripken, Tammo; Streit, Bernhard; Riemens, Marleen (2020). Thermal weed control technologies for conservation agriculture—a review Weed Research, 60(4), pp. 241-250. Wiley-Blackwell 10.1111/wre.12418

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Research and development activities on non‐chemical weed control methods to date have mainly focused on mechanical and thermal applications. Selectivity in mechanical weed control is obtained using dynamically actuated harrows. Selectivity in thermal weed control is obtained through a certain heat tolerance of the crop. In conservation agriculture (CA), weed emergence is partially suppressed by constant soil cover with crops or cover crops. Large amounts of plant residues therefore remain on the soil, which make mechanical methods inefficient or difficult to implement. And thermal methods need to prevent not only crop damage but also fire from situationally dry plant residues. In this review, technologies that can potentially be used for in‐crop weed control in CA are discussed. The technologies reviewed include spot‐flaming, electric resistance heating, electromagnetic irradiation and steam/hot water application. Their evaluation focuses on efficiency and specificity (spatial precision). This review indicates that existing equipment does not fulfil the spatial precision required in CA and that further research and development is required on this topic. In particular, the authors suggest further research on the use of laser diodes, micro‐flames and capacitive coupling of electric fields. It seems that the use of automated imaging systems for weed/crop differentiation is a prerequisite in CA to enable automatisation of weed control.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL > Resource-efficient agricultural production systems School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL > Agriculture
Name:	Bauer, Martin; Marx, Christian; Bauer, Fabienne V.; Flury, Dominique M.; Ripken, Tammo; Streit, Bernhard and Riemens, Marleen
Subjects:	S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General) S Agriculture > SB Plant culture
ISSN:	0043-1737
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
Language:	English
Submitter:	Martin Bauer
Date Deposited:	27 Jul 2020 08:58
Last Modified:	09 Oct 2021 02:17
Publisher DOI:	10.1111/wre.12418
Uncontrolled Keywords:	contact-free, electric discharge, electromagnetic radiation, evaluation scheme, flaming, non-chemical, steam/hot water
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.11774
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/11774