A new application system to replace the herbicide Dosaffo (metoxuron) is being developed by companies Micron Sprayers and Garford Farm Machinery.
Vegetable growers relied on the discontinued herbicide Dosaffo to selectively control volunteer potatoes and other weeds in wide range of vegetable crops, including onions, carrots, leeks and parsnips.
The combined Varidome/WeedSwiper inter-row and over the row precision weeder, devised by Micron Sprayers and Garford Farm Machinery, allows the grower to selectively and safely control volunteer potatoes and other weeds with total herbicides such as glyphosate, using a combination of two novel application technologies.
This new machine combines and integrates two precise, targeted and safe application technologies - Micron’s WeedSwiper and Vegedome. These proven methods are widely used elsewhere in agriculture and horticulture, including weed and bolter control in sugar beet and inter-row weed control in vegetable crops. Micron is moving quickly to ensure product availability as early as possible in 2008.
Precise and safe non-drip WeedSwiper contact technology is used to target height-differentiated weeds growing out from and above the bed. The WeedSwiper technology is supplied to suit and cater for the actual number and width of beds, and each section is equipped with its own sensor-system all linked via a multi channel Hydrostat control box. This ensures constant WeedSwiper pad wetness across each bed, irrespective of weed density elsewhere. This in turn means the system automatically allows for variation in weed number (density) between beds when replenishing fluid to meet the individual requirements of each pad section.
Vegedome controls inter-row weeds by a precise targeted contact low volume spray under a variable width shroud (80 - 800mm). All weeds, including those growing between the drilled rows of crop plants in the bed and those in the inter-rows, including the wheelings, between the beds are treated.
No comments yet