Month: May 2021

1. Wheel Placement.  An 8’ implement with one-foot row spacing would have seven rows.  Assuming that we only want the wheels to go between the rows and not on the rows so as to crush the crop; we would have six such paths to drive in.  We could do this with three sets of dual wheels, two on the outside and one castor dual in the front as shown:

                               

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1		2		3		4		5		6		7
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Numbers are plant rows , | are wheels, machine going up

                        

 

Water Knife for weeding. With the previous lock on row system, the precise location of each weed would be known, relative to the implement.  The weed could be removed by directing some sort of mechanical hoe to chop it out, much the same way a person chops out a weed in a garden.  However, in keeping with the concept of minimizing soil disturbance; it would be possible to use a very high pressure ‘water-knife’ to cut the weed off, at ground level. I envision a rotating carousel with a water knife nozzle making an 8” circular movement, pointing 30 deg down.  It would maybe be 10 inches above the ground.  When a weed is located, and comes within the range of the knife, a stream of very high-pressure water is directed at the stem of the weed, cutting it off.  Obviously good plants would be spared, but if we got really good at this, weeds even in the row could be removed. With such a system, herbicides would no longer be required.  Say that again, herbicides would no longer be required, and this would be better for the farmer (no herbicide costs), better for the environment (only a bit of water residual), better for the crop (do not get stunted with the herbicide), better for the consumer ( no residual chemicals, — organic?).  We have the technology to do all this, it is just a matter of adapting it.