Weed Ecology and Management

Franklin Robotics’ Tertill is an autonomous weeding robot designed to control agricultural weeds through the use of a built-in weed whacker. With two conductivity sensors, one around its side and another on its underside, the Tertill is able to sense walls and tell the difference between large and small plants. All farmers need to do is […]

Physical weed control typically yields highly variable results.  Flex-tine harrows are commonly used, and are often the only choice for organic grain farmers, but finding the right tool and settings can be a challenge. A study conducted by UMaine Weed Ecology Master’s student, Johnny Sanchez, focused on flex-tine harrows.  He investigated six tool systems’ weed control efficacy: […]

  After a very wet spring in the Northeast, on-farm research is well under way.  Here’s a quick overview of what we’re up to on farms. In both the Midwestern and Northeastern US, we’ve partnered with seven organic vegetable farms to see whether weed seedbank management and tool stacking can improve weed management outcomes.  We matched each farm with […]

Two new videos produced by Margaret McCollough, M.S. student studying band-sowing and hoeing as alternative weed management practices for organic grains. Band Sowing and Cultivation for Weed Management in Organic Grains   Camera Steering Systems for Precision Cultivation and Weed Management in Cereals  

To consolidate our outreach efforts, and hopefully improve viability of our work, we are working to migrate our past posts to gallandt.wordpress to our new umaine.edu/weedecology website.

Comparing Solarization & Occultation Grace Smith, Undergraduate Student Sonja Birthisel, PhD Student in Ecology and Environmental Sciences Eric R. Gallandt, Professor of Weed Ecology and Management   We have seen increased interest in using black plastic silage tarps for stale seedbed preparation, a technique known as occultation or tarping.  Our prior research suggests that solarization […]

It appears we are very near a revolutionary breakthrough in physical weed control!