Others pulled multi-row tractor attachments with camera-guided systems and hydraulic adjustments through fields of recently-planted corn.
Bringing farmers together to see equipment in action – and even test it out themselves – is at the heart of the Midwest Mechanical Weed Control Field Day.
“One thing I love about this event, it brings together all types of farmers, different scales, different crops and different growing philosophies,” said Sam Oschwald Tilton, founder and lead organizer of the annual event.
Over the past eight years, the field day has rotated to different states. This was the first in-person event in Iowa.
Oschwald Tilton estimated that half of the attendees use pesticides in some manner but are interested in reducing how much they apply or need solutions for herbicide-resistant weeds. The other half use organic methods. This includes corn and soybean farmers, but also many small- to mid-size vegetable growers who rely heavily on labor.
“For those farmers that don’t use herbicides, it’s harder and harder for them to pay people to hand-weed,” Oschwald Tilton said. “And the more they have to pay people, the more that expensive weeding tool starts to pencil out.”
Kate Edwards grows 150 varieties of 30 different types of vegetables at Wild Woods Farm in eastern Iowa. Holding her four-year-old daughter, she said mechanical weed control can help save time and make farming more efficient.
“As we all know, there [are] work-life balance issues with farming when you're farming really long days, and anything that can make your life a little bit easier to also grow your crop a little bit better, is going to be incredibly important,” Edwards said.
Edwards said she’s known about the Midwest Mechanical Weed Control Field Day for years, but it was too far of a drive in the middle of the growing season.
“A year ago, I heard a rumor that it was gonna be in Iowa. I was so excited,” Edwards said. “It's the event of the summer for us.”
Oschwald Tilton said the event grew out of on-farm research during graduate school at Michigan State University.
“My professor, Dan Brainard, and I were learning a lot about European weeding tools,” he said. “At the time, they were cutting edge and just coming into the U.S.”
They organized the first Midwest Mechanical Weed Control Field Day in Michigan in 2017 to help farmers learn about new options. Oschwald Tilton said it was meant to be a one-off event, but some of the attendees asked if it could continue.
Since the first field day, Oschwald Tilton said the mechanical weed sector has grown and expanded. More U.S. companies import tools from Europe. Some adapt them to meet the needs of U.S. farmers, and others, like Ohio-based Unverferth Manufacturing, make their own.
Click here to see more...