Shocking weeds

Shocking weeds

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
A different approach to killing weeds. Weed scientist Dr. Pam Hutchinson. Speaker2: One of the things I do work with are herbicides. There has been issues about it. One of them is about glyphosate. Glyphosate increase some type of cancer. Speaker1: Okay. Is there some other way to treat weeds? According to Lynn Sosnowski, assistant professor of weed science at Cornell University. Yes, and it's not by a herbicide. It's via electricity, by shocking plants. Speaker3: Recently, we were awarded a proposal to investigate the use of electricity to control weeds in perennial cropping systems. And we're all in the process of purchasing and evaluating a commercial unit out of South America to test its viability in our production systems here in the US. It basically kills the weeds, just like you think it would. It's a tractor mounted, PTO driven generator generates a current. The weeds come into contact with the positive electrode. The current passes through the weeds to the negative electrode and the flow of current heats the water in the cells up, they vaporize and that causes the cells to burst and then the tissues to die. The non-chemical strategy for weed control. It is a potential strategy. Speaker1: Meaning potential for the future, a future which is seeing an increased concern over the long term biological effects of using chemical herbicides.
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