Crop signal markers facilitate crop detection and weed removal from lettuce and tomato by an intelligent cultivator (original) (raw)

Increasing weed control costs and limited herbicide options threaten vegetable crop profitability. Traditional inter-row mechanical cultivation is very effective between crop rows. However, weed control within the crop rows is necessary to establish the crop and prevent yield loss. Currently, many vegetable crops require hand weeding to remove weeds within the row left by traditional cultivation and herbicides. Intelligent cultivators have come into commercial use to remove intra-row weeds and reduce cost of hand weeding. Intelligent cultivators currently on the market, such as the Robovator, use pattern recognition to detect the crop row. These cultivators do not differentiate crops and weeds and do not work well in high weed populations. One approach to differentiation is to place a machine detectable mark or signal on the crop, i.e., the crop has the mark and the weed does not, facilitating weed/crop differentiation. Lettuce and tomato plants were marked with labels and topical m...