Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Current Competitive Grant

An automated mechanical intra-row weed removal system for vegetable crops

NOTE: Work on this grant project has been completed and is awaiting a final report.

Project ID: M2009-23

This 2-year grant for $54,645 was awarded in 2009.

Location: Statewide

The goal of this project is to develop a practical mechanical intra-row weed control solution for automatically removing weeds from vegetable crops for small and mid-scale Iowa growers. Investigators will explore an optical sensing system and a mechanism to remove weeds with minimal soil disturbance, crop damage and energy input. The project also will demonstrate the effectiveness and economic viability of the system.

Lie Tang

Lie Tang Lie Tang is an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University. His expertise is in agricultural automation and robotics, and he has had many years of international research experience of these in both Europe and the U.S. Tang has developed an advanced real-time machine vision system for automated behavior monitoring of group-housed pigs in KULeuven (Belgium). He is currently continuing his research in developing advanced sensing, optimization and robotic technologies for agricultural production systems in this century. [Contact lead investigator]

This competitive grant project is part of the Leopold Center's Marketing Initiative.

Topics: Fruit and vegetables, Weed control alternatives (not GMOs)