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Weeding performance of a spring-tine harrow as affected by timing and operational parameters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2020

Zhiwei Zeng ,
Amy Martin ,
Ying Chen  and
Xu Ma Open the ORCID record for Xu Ma [Opens in a new window]
Zhiwei Zeng
Affiliation:
Postdoctoral Research Associate, South China Agricultural University, College of Engineering, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China; Department of Biosystems Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Amy Martin
Affiliation:
Undergraduate Student, Department of Biosystems Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Ying Chen
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Biosystems Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Xu Ma*
Affiliation:
Professor, South China Agricultural University, College of Engineering, and Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
*
Author for correspondence: Xu Ma, College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, 483 Wushan Road, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510642, China. (Email: [email protected])
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Abstract

The spring-tine harrow is gaining popularity for mechanical weeding. However, its weeding performance and mechanism have not been well understood. A spring-tine harrow was first tested in a controlled indoor soil bin at four different travel speeds (4, 6, 8, and 10 km h−1) with three different spring-loading settings (low, medium, and high). Then the harrow was tested in a wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) field at the same spring-loading settings at three different weeding timings (early, middle, and late) in 2019 and 2020. Soil cutting forces (draft and vertical), soil displacements (forward and lateral), soil working depth, weed control efficacy, weed density, and crop damage were measured. The results showed that the spring-loading setting had a more dominant effect on working depth and soil cutting forces than the speed. The soil displacements were more dependent on the speed compared with the spring-loading setting. Treatment effects on weeding performance indicators in the field were similar across years. Adjusting the spring-loading setting from low to high improved the weeding efficacy from 44.9% to 73.9% in 2019 and from 51.6% to 78.1% in 2020. Consequently, the final weed density was minimized at the high loading setting, with the reduction in 2020 being significant. The middle weeding timing caused the least crop damage, while reducing the final weed density by approximately one-third compared with the control (without mechanical weeding), which was the most desired outcome among the three timings tested.

Keywords

mechanical weed controlspring-tine harrowweeding timingtravel speedspring-loading setting
Type
Research Article
Information
Weed Science , Volume 69 , Issue 2 , March 2021 , pp. 247 - 256
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Weed Science Society of America

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Footnotes

Associate Editor: Sharon Clay, South Dakota State University

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