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March 17, 2015 • Page 15
NATIONAL
AG WEEK
Blasting Weeds Away With Grit
Jim Eklund drives as
agronomist Frank Forcella
blasts small weeds away
with pressurized grit from
a prototype of PAGMan
(Propelled Abrasive Grit
Management) Jim Eklund
drives as agronomist Frank
Forcella blasts small weeds
away with pressurized grit
from a prototype of PAGMan
(Propelled Abrasive Grit
Management)
The timeless struggle
against weeds is especially
tough for organic farmers,
who avoid using highly
concentrated toxic
herbicides in favor of
chemical-free methods like
hand-pulling, soil tillage,
and scorching. These
methods are time-consuming
and expensive, and they
tend to be less efficient
than standard herbicides.
Fortunately, the war on
weeds has a new nonchemical weapon to add
to its arsenal: a machine
that obliterates weeds by
blasting them with grit.
Propelled Abrasive Grit
Management (PAGMan)
is a device created by
agronomist Frank Forcella
and a team from South
Dakota State University in
Brookings and the USDAARS North Central Soil
Conservation Research
Laboratory in Morris, Minn.
The system disintegrates
weeds with high pressure
grit particles while leaving
the surrounding crops
intact.
Forcella got the idea
while he was daydreaming
about uses for the five gallon
bucket of apricot pits he
had lying around the house.
It just seemed wasteful to
throw away all these pits,
and it got me wondering
what the apricot industry
does with them. It turns
out they sometimes grind
them up and use the grit in
sandblasters.
Sandblasting, or abrasive
blasting, uses high pressure
to propel grit in order to
smooth, shape, and clean
surfaces.
Out in the field one day,
my colleague and I thought,
What if we could adapt the
sand blasters to control
weeds? said Forcella. We
kind of laughed it off but the
PHOTOS BY IOWA AG LITERACY
Game Of Drones
idea didnt go away.
A little internet research
revealed that a small
sandblaster wouldnt break
the budget, so they gave it
a try. They bought a tiny
sandblaster and, using corn
cob grit, they tested it out in
the greenhouse on common
weeds growing alongside
corn.
When the corn is about
six to 12 inches tall, and
the weeds are just poking
up, you blast them for just
a split second with the
corn grit and, sure enough,
the weeds disappear, said
Forcella.
With this timing of
the pelting process, the
strong, established corn
plants remain intact and
can continue to grow. But
the tender leaves of the
emerging weeds succumb
to the blasting process.
Without the leafy tops
on the weed plants to
photosynthesize, the weeds
Photo by Dean Peterson
root system withers away,
and the weed dies.
After determining which
stage of plant growth is
best to apply the grit, it was
time to take PAGMan to the
field. Forcella used a bigger
unit mounted on an off-road
vehicle in a corn field, and,
Lo and behold it worked!
said Forcella. We found that
we could get 80-90% weed
control, and with that kind
of control you have zero
crop loss.
The blasters target weeds
that sprout among common
row crops such as soy and
corn. Two applications of
the grit treatment work best
and should be applied when
the crop is tall and strong
enough to be unharmed.
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Forcella approached
organic farmers with the
grit-blasting method,
some of whom suggested
improving the idea by
substituting organic
fertilizer something farmers
have to apply to the soil
anyway for the corn cob
grit. Many fertilizers, like
limestone for instance, just
happen to have a granular
gritty texture, said Forcella.
So farmers can apply the
fertilizer and simultaneously
blast the smithereens out of
weeds.
Some weeds, like
waterhemp and pigweed,
have developed multiple
resistance to common
herbicides, and are no
longer deterred by them.
The PAGMan has the
potential to assist in
controlling these sly weeds
on conventional farms as
well.
With help from Dan
Humberg and Cory Lanoue,
field machinery engineers
at SDSU, and a grant from
NCSARE (North Central
Sustainable Agriculture
Research and Education),
the team crafted a larger
version of the PAGMan. This
version has eight coneshaped nozzles targeted
at either side of four rows
of crops. The nozzles are
connected to a tank that
holds the grit material.
Tests with the updated
and larger PAGMan on corn
plots in organically certified
fields show favorable
results. Forcella hopes to
work in conjunction with
colleagues to improve the
device, possibly adding GPS
in order to improve aim
accuracy.
Theres a lot of expense
and manpower associated
with organic weed control,
said Forcella. This method,
if practiced at the correct
growth stages, could be a
win against the never-ending
onslaught of noxious weeds.
n Crop Science Society of
America
connecting to potential customers.
Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles
“As long as you don’t have the end user
(UAVs), are a hot ticket in Silicon Valley, but
because they can’t use it, you’re basically
U.S. government dithering over regulations
missing a lot of the ecosystem,” says Thevoz.
has given overseas companies a head-start in
In Singapore, Garuda Robotics is already
figuring out how best to exploit them.
moving beyond just being a drone operator.
Global spending on drones could add up
“The drones are a means to get the data out of
to close to $100 billion over the next decade,
the sky,” says co-founder and CEO Mark Yong,
with commercial uses - from farming and
“but if you can’t process it you’ve not created
filming to pipelines and parcels - accounting
any value for the customer.”
for around an eighth of that market, according
While the company has been helping map
to BI Intelligence.
the boundaries of palm oil plantations in
But for years, the Federal Aviation
Malaysia, it has added the ability to calibrate
Administration (FAA), the authority largely
responsible for regulation in the United States, the drones’ cameras to measure moisture
levels in individual trees. It’s now working with
has dragged its feet, only last month issuing
agronomists to figure out how to make sense
draft rules on who can fly drones, how and
of that thermal data to judge the health of
where. It’s likely to be a year or more before
trees and their likely yield.
the regulations are in place - good news for
Other projects include assembling
companies operating outside the U.S. and
real-time 3D maps of building sites to help
looking to build a business around drones.
construction schedules, monitoring and
Sky-Futures, a British company that
reducing algae blooms and keeping tabs on
dominates the use of drones to collect
packs of stray dogs using infrared cameras.
and analyze inspection data for oil and
All of this would be hard, if not impossible,
gas companies, says its business soared
under FAA regulations that limit drones flying
700 percent last year as the normally
out of sight of the operator, or at night.
conservative energy industry embraced the
While regulation typically lags technology,
new technology. Co-founder and operations
no one’s betting against Silicon Valley
director Chris Blackford said the company is
dominating the industry in the long run. Last
coupling drones with software and a better
year, more than $100 million flowed into U.S.
understanding of what works in the field,
drone start-ups, according to CB Insights,
giving Sky-Futures “a head-start over the U.S
double 2013 levels.
because we understand pretty intimately the
“Let’s not kid ourselves,” said Philip Von
problems facing the oil and gas market, and
Meyenburg, who runs a drone operating
how we can solve them with technology.”
company out of Singapore. “They know what
Looser regulations outside the U.S. have
created pockets of innovation attracting ideas, they’re doing in the U.S.”
And China, too, is in the game as hardware
money and momentum, says Patrick Thevoz,
prices fall rapidly. China’s DJI sells consumer
co-founder and CEO of Swiss-based Flyability,
grade drones for $500, making it hard for
which builds drones inside a spherical cage
companies producing lower volumes to justify
that allows them to bump through doors,
their higher prices.
tunnels and forests without losing balance.
“The challenge for all drone manufacturers
Another British company, BioCarbon
now is that we’re in a market that is constantly
Engineering, hopes to speed up reforestation
updating,” said Flyability’s Thevoz.
by using drones to plant germinated seeds,
and shares in New Zealand-based Martin
n Jeremy Wagstaff, Reuters (AP)
Aircraft trebled in the first few days after
listing in Australia last month, on investor
hopes for the personalized
aircraft maker which is
developing a UAV that could
be used by the military, oil
Wanted:
and gas, mining and farming
• Old Cars
industries.
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In Japan, the government
is looking to fast track
• Farm Machinery
industry-friendly regulation
• Irrigation Systems
to give its drone business an
• Any Type of
edge.
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But the real work, say
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