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Funded Project |
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Funding Program:
IPM Partnership Grants |
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Project Title:
Innovating organic grain growers' IPM toolbox with camera-guided cultivation and selective cutting |
Project Directors (PDs):
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Lead State: ME Lead Organization: UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM acting through the University of Maine |
| Undesignated Funding: $49,980 |
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Start Date: Mar-01-2019 End Date: Feb-29-2020 |
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Pests Involved: spring annual weeds |
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Site/Commodity: Small grains |
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Area of Emphasis: organic |
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Summary:
Spring annual weeds, in particular wild mustard (Sinapis arvensis) and wild radish (Raphanaus raphanistrum), remain organic growers’ number one production problem for spring grains, limiting the viability of organic grain systems in the Northeast. When current practices fail to control these weeds, not only is the current crop affected but contributions to the weed seedbank result in increased weed pressure in subsequent crops, creating a vicious cycle. Two new IPM technologies, automated camera-guided cultivation and selective weed cutting, offer organic grain farmers new, scalable tools to reduce in-season weed pressure and weed seed rain. The sensor-based cultivation technology uses a camera and a robotic side-shift unit to guide inter-row sweeps, allowing precision cultivation at high working rates (e.g., 10 km hr-1) in crops seeded on standard 13- to 18-cm row spacing. Seed production by surviving intra-row weeds can then be reduced using the CombCut® (Just Common Sense AB), a novel implement with sets of angled and overlapping narrow knives that allow flexible small grain leaves to pass through but cut off flowers and seed heads of stiff-stemmed plants, like wild mustard and wild radish. When integrated with other weed IPM techniques (e.g., crop rotation, cover cropping, increased seeding rates, and blind cultivation), these new tools have the potential to dramatically improve organic grain farmers’ short- and long-term weed management and thereby reduce their production risks.
We will work with three experienced organic grain farmers to evaluate these new tools alone and in combination with other IPM strategies in on-farm and research station trials. The farmers’ experiences and the research results will be incorporated into a factsheet and two webinars on “Weed IPM for Organic Grains” with the goal of increasing farmers’ knowledge and confidence in using weed IPM. Objectives: The goal of this project is to reduce the number one risk associated with growing organic spring grains in the Northeast – spring annual weeds. Specific objectives are to: 1. Evaluate two new IPM tools for managing weeds in organic spring grains, and 2. Increase organic grain farmers’ knowledge and confidence related to using weed IPM. |
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Final Report: |
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Outputs We conducted a research station and three on-farm trials to evaluate automated camera-guided cultivation and a selective cutting implement (e.g., CombCut®, Just Common Sense AB), alone and in combination with each other and other strategies, for their effects on weed density, weed reproductive biomass, and grain yield. All trials were in a randomized complete block design, with 4 blocks. In the on-farm trials, selective cutting reduced the amount of reproductive biomass produced per mustard weed plant by 39% (p=0.0045), as well as total mustard reproductive biomass but at a much lower significance level (p=0.1510), but other treatment effects were not observed likely due to very high levels of variability in crop and weed stands. In the research station trial, cultivation alone reduced weed density by 54% and weed biomass by 30%, as compared with the standard practice (tine harrowing), but had no effect on weed reproductive biomass, whereas adding selective cutting reduced reproductive biomass by 50%. |
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Outcomes Due to the delay in completing objective 2, we have not yet conducted a project evaluation to document project outcomes. |
Report Appendices
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