- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Organic weed control in orchards is far more difficult than conventional weed control, reported the Daily Democrat. The story was written by Bob Johnson for AgAlert.
The most effective organic approach to weed control is a combination of cultural practices and organic herbicides, said John Roncoroni, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Napa County, at a pear weed control field meeting.
"This is the wood mulch from last year," Roncoroni pointed out at the field day. "As you can see, the grass is growing on the edges, but it's held up pretty well. This is after a...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
For automated, mechanical weed control to work, scientists must teach machines how to distinguish between unwanted vegetation and the crop being cultivated. A new, high-tech system using x-rays to detect tomato stems is under development by UC Davis Cooperative Extension agricultural engineer David Slaughter and USDA Agricultural Research Service researcher Ron Haff. The output from the x-ray detector is input to a microcontroller that controls a pair of pneumatically powered mechanical weed knife blades.
Slaughter and Haff's work was explained this week in an online newsletter produced by
