Mechanical inter- and intra-row weed control for small-scale vegetable producers

Trajkovski, Ana (author), Bartolj, Jan (author), Levstek, Tomaž (author), Godeša, Tone (author), Sečnik, Matej (author), Hočevar, Marko (author), Majdič, Franc (author)

Small-scale vegetable producers often do not have modern mechanical equipment; as a result, a significant amount of inter-row and all intra-row weeding is performed manually. The development of small, affordable machines increases the competitiveness of organic vegetable production, improves sustainable land use, and reduces dependence on unwanted herbicides. In this study, a simple modular lightweight e-hoe with the capability for both inter-row (1st degree of freedom) and intra-row (2nd degree of freedom) weeding was proposed. The e-hoe uses battery-powered in-wheel drives to move the platform (3rd degree of freedom) and additional drives to operate the tools. The e-hoe was evaluated in a small greenhouse using three different tools: a traditional hoe, an adjusted rounded hoe, and an adjusted spring tine narrow hoe. The experiments were conducted at four different tool rotation speeds, using specially designed 3D-printed models for crops and weeds for evaluation. The results indicate that the efficiency of the e-hoe rates up to 95% when the right tool design and rotation speed are combined. Based on the battery capacity, the machine can be operated for approximately 3.7 h, enabling the weeding of about 3050 plants.

• Language: English
• Keywords: weed control, mechanical weeding, inter-row, intra-row, sustainable agriculture
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FS - Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: Str. 1-14
• Numbering: Vol. 14, iss. 9, art. 1483
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-161034-6c632173-4935-ea8f-ded2-fc0cc0c29217
• UDC: 632.51:631.31
• ISSN on article: 2077-0472
• DOI: 10.3390/agriculture14091483
• COBISS.SI-ID: 206591747
• Publication date in RUL: 06.09.2024

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Agriculture
• Shortened title: Agriculture
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2077-0472
• COBISS.SI-ID: 523634201

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: zatiranje plevela, mehansko odstranjevanje plevela, medvrstni, znotraj vrstice, trajnostno kmetijstvo