Laser Weeding

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

New technology is enabling farmers to be more and more precise with their weed control. In some cases they target only the weed with what is commonly referred to as see-and-spray technology. But what if we could remove the herbicide spray from the equation entirely? And while we’re at it, have the weed removal device drive itself.

Mikesell… “It drives itself up and down the furrows of the field, completely driven by computer vision. And then in real time, as it's driving, it finds and discovers where the weeds are in your fields. And then it targets these lasers at these weeds and just evaporates them. Just destroys them with these lasers.”

That’s Carbon Robotics CEO Paul Mikesell. He’s partnered with farmer Shay Myers and others to develop this fully autonomous laser weeding robot that he says can save farmers time and money while being more friendly to the environment.

Mikesell… “Some of the benefits are with such high precision in our targeting that we're able to get in between the crops really tightly and kill weeds right up next to your cross. Or if you have crops that shade in, you know, we can get in between them. And with crops like onions that don't really shade in too well, we can go all the way up until harvest and keep clearing those weeds out. No herbicides, no people in the fields having to do this stuff. No top soil disturbance. So for folks that are interested in regenerative farming and keeping that good water absorption qualities of their top soil, we don't till we don't disturb the soil, it's all done with these lasers.”

Learn more at the company’s website carbonrobotics.com.