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Mechanical Weed Control: Old Tools, New Tech
76 Plays10 days ago
In this episode, the team dives deep into the world of mechanical and cultural weed control. What starts as a fun discussion about corvids and birdwatching quickly transitions into the heart of the episode—how growers manage weeds without chemical inputs. The crew explores the overlap between cultural and mechanical practices like crop rotation, cover cropping, hoeing, solarization, and high-wheel cultivators.
Ray shares nostalgic stories from the 1980s of farming with mules and mechanical tillers. Brett puts modern weed control into historical and economic context, and Alexis gets excited about the future—robotic weeders, solar-powered machines, and the upcoming Kentucky Mechanical Weed Control Field Day. From stirrup hoes to camera-guided cultivators, they explore how growers of all scales can improve efficiency, reduce herbicide use, and build healthier soils.
Special Mentions:
- Merlin Bird App from Cornell Lab
- Kentucky High Wheel Cultivator
- Walk-behind tractors
- Midwest Mechanical Weed Control Field Day
- Electrical weed control research
- The upcoming Kentucky Mechanical Weed Control Field Day on September 23rd
Call to Action:
Visit ccd.uky.edu and click on the Mechanical Weed Control Field Day (link below) tab to register. Learn about tool demos, solarization research, grant opportunities, and eat a free ice cream sandwich in exchange for your feedback!
Center for Crop Diversification
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Transcript
Birdwatching Adventures in Montana
00:00:17
Alexis
Hello. Has anybody seen any cool birds lately?
00:00:21
Plant People
Well, that's a strong opener. Yeah, actually. Yes. Yes. ah What, what were the, once again, I mean, we talked just a second about Montana, but were they magpies that I kept seeing?
00:00:33
Alexis
Oh, the ravens?
00:00:34
Plant People
not Not ravens.
00:00:35
Alexis
The big ol' ravens?
00:00:35
Plant People
I think they were magpies maybe in Montana.
00:00:35
Alexis
Oh, I saw...
00:00:38
Plant People
So I thought they were super cool, which, I mean, I think that's what the big big black and white things. But yeah, maybe.
00:00:44
Alexis
oh yeah.
00:00:44
Brett
Ray and Alexis were recent were recently in Montana for a the National Association of County Ag Agents meeting.
00:00:45
Alexis
I...
00:00:51
Brett
Alexis went in ah in ag agent clothing or ag agent, you know, Big Bad Wolf style.
00:00:57
Alexis
even
00:00:58
Plant People
Making connections with ah other folks of or of her like mind in other states.
00:01:03
Alexis
ah yeah yeah it was really
00:01:04
Plant People
So yeah, good
The Intelligence of Ravens and Book Recommendations
00:01:05
Plant People
stuff. but But it's funny, but I did, I was looking for cool birds out there. So, you know.
00:01:05
Alexis
it was really cool but yes i
00:01:10
Alexis
i saw i don't think i had ever actually seen a raven like a true giant raven before and they were huge and i was like do you think we could be friends do you think does anybody have any peanuts like i'm i'm in
00:01:14
Plant People
They're big. They're really big.
00:01:26
Plant People
I hear they're very smart. They're very smart.
00:01:28
Alexis
Yeah, parrot, like very, that's what they say.
00:01:29
Plant People
And they live for a while, so.
00:01:31
Brett
Yeah, there's...
00:01:32
Alexis
The lore is, um you know, how they, so ah if you're out in the middle of the woods and you hear somebody talking or sat like weird sounds out in the woods, they're like, you know, no, you didn't type thing.
00:01:44
Alexis
a lot of the times people, it has been, the scientists will tell you that they're ravens who have heard that somewhere and they're making those sounds because they know
00:01:50
Plant People
Oh, wow.
00:01:53
Alexis
humans make these sounds and so um i'm yeah yeah it's totally ravens and not other creepy things yeah yeah but also no you didn't
00:01:57
Plant People
That's not creepy. It's not Hanks or Ghost or... Yeah, I'm walking fast.
00:02:02
Brett
i A couple of years ago, I read a book called, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? i think that's what it's called. And it's, I mean, one among other things, very good book. I would recommend highly readable, but also good. It has a lot of good information in it. But one of the things that I kind of took away from it is that primatologists who study Primates and corvid specific ornithologists who study birds and specifically corvids, which are crows and ravens.
00:02:28
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:02:29
Plant People
Thank you.
00:02:32
Brett
There's kind of a healthy competition between them on behalf of the species that they study that, you know, which of these represents. a highest level or or whatever of ah of animal intelligence. And it was pretty wild just how, you know, you said that here where they're really smart, but there's um really extensive like object permanence components where they can understand where something was, remember where it was, go back to it.
00:02:58
Brett
They can have um unique facial recognition of humans and other species and even assign them names in their, you know, the sounds that there's a specific sound they would just make.
00:03:08
Plant People
Oh, wow.
00:03:09
Brett
I assume if it was, if they saw you, they would say, Ray. um
00:03:14
Plant People
That's ah in my mind.
00:03:15
Brett
But I don't.
00:03:15
Plant People
That's what I was. I'm glad you said that. or
00:03:17
Brett
Yeah.
00:03:17
Alexis
That's exactly what I've
00:03:18
Plant People
So yeah.
00:03:19
Brett
Yeah.
00:03:19
Plant People
Yeah.
00:03:20
Brett
and
Bird Identification Technology
00:03:21
Brett
Whoa. Whoa.
00:03:21
Plant People
Not creepy, but that's pretty incredible. That's like higher order level intelligence. I mean, yeah.
00:03:26
Brett
Yeah, it's it's a cool book. I think the the author's last name is Wall, maybe, W-A-H-L, but it's ah it's a cool cool little book.
00:03:30
Plant People
hmm.
00:03:33
Brett
um I haven't seen any cool birds myself. late I've seen a bunch of cardinals and some blue jays.
00:03:39
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:03:40
Brett
um Oh, some hummingbirds. you know That's pretty always pretty cool.
00:03:42
Plant People
Well, those are always fun.
00:03:42
Alexis
They're so cute.
00:03:44
Brett
We're we're a couple of but probably about a month and a half out from goldfinch season in my neck of the woods where a lot of the
00:03:51
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:03:54
Brett
the gray cone flower starts setting seed and a couple other things and they just come in and go ham on it and gain. We talked about giant pumpkins gaining 30 to 40 pounds overnight. Well, they proportionally do that in our backyard, which is pretty cool.
00:04:08
Alexis
I do that over the winter too, so I feel.
00:04:10
Plant People
yeah
00:04:10
Brett
Yeah.
00:04:11
Plant People
ah I gain. I no longer lose.
00:04:12
Brett
The winter, the winter swelling.
00:04:15
Plant People
I don't want to lose my gain. So that's my current life philosophy. I'm going to maintain my gains, yeah my cheese gains, my cheese and bread gains.
00:04:19
Alexis
okay My cheesecake gains.
00:04:24
Plant People
So, yeah, cool birds. Yeah. Now I start to notice. I mean, there's all these nice apps and stuff, ah you know, that I see now that you can just like, you know, let it record.
00:04:31
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:04:31
Brett
Merlin.
00:04:33
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:04:35
Plant People
And then it's going to tell you usually with pretty good degree of accuracy.
00:04:38
Alexis
I have learned so much about like our birds from that app.
00:04:40
Plant People
Ah, yeah.
00:04:40
Brett
Yeah, for real.
00:04:41
Alexis
Like what's there, what things sound like.
00:04:41
Plant People
Yeah. Pretty incredible.
00:04:43
Alexis
Yeah. It's pretty
00:04:45
Brett
The thing that I liked about it was that it's ah it's out of a lab at Cornell, which is, some people don't realize, Cornell is actually the land-grant university in New York City, or New York City, in New York State, um much like University of Kentucky is here.
00:04:54
Plant People
Yep.
00:04:58
Brett
And so this like idea of a relevant, like not only relevant, but wildly popular technology that particularly blew up, I think, over COVID, but has you know since retained a level of popularity.
00:04:59
Alexis
What up?
00:05:04
Plant People
Yeah.
00:05:09
Brett
i thought I just thought that was a really cool story. It came out of a lab up there in Cornell.
00:05:12
Plant People
Yeah. The Corvid's over COVID. Yeah. I like it
00:05:16
Brett
That's right.
00:05:16
Alexis
Corvids for COVID, COVID for Corvids.
00:05:18
Brett
Putting the COVID in Corvid. I don't.
00:05:20
Plant People
Yeah. It gets in this too, gets thick.
00:05:20
Brett
Yeah.
00:05:22
Plant People
So yeah.
00:05:23
Brett
yeah The primatologists and the ornithologists agree that my human intelligence is lower than both Corvid's and other primates. That's the one.
00:05:32
Plant People
My capacity may be greater, but in actuality and implementation is much less.
00:05:35
Brett
Yeah.
00:05:37
Plant People
Yeah.
00:05:37
Brett
Yeah. I was like, but it was funny though. And they're like that. Not, not true either. Sorry.
00:05:41
Alexis
not Not true.
00:05:41
Brett
Yeah.
00:05:41
Plant People
Yeah. Sorry. On all accounts, negative, negative to the contrary.
00:05:42
Alexis
None of us laugh. Well, uh...
00:05:45
Brett
This study was funded by my wife.
00:05:45
Plant People
Profitly
00:05:49
Brett
keep or Save us, Alexis.
00:05:49
Plant People
funded.
00:05:50
Alexis
vola When I am often seeing a lot of these birds outside in the field, it's because I'm outside weeding ah in some form or fashion.
Weed Control Methods: Cultural vs Mechanical
00:06:02
Alexis
And so that's what we're talking about today is ah mechanical ah weed control specifically, or even you know cultural. like Sometimes I like lump those two things together, even though there's technically a difference um between cultural and mechanical, but to me they
00:06:18
Plant People
There's
00:06:20
Alexis
blend right um the whole like square rectangle thing uh yeah yeah
00:06:23
Plant People
like chemical versus non-chemical and everything else you can break down from there. I mean, some kind of, you know, if different ways of looking at it, but yeah.
00:06:31
Brett
Well, can you, can for those of us um with a sub-corvid intelligence, could you explain the cultural versus mechanical and then kind of go from there?
00:06:37
Alexis
yeah so
00:06:40
Brett
So so we're we're laying aside... spraying the thing and it dies because of the chemical you know interaction. So no Roundup, no 2,4-D, no non-selective, no selective herbicides at all.
00:06:49
Plant People
No herbicide. Yeah.
00:06:52
Alexis
No vinegar, salt.
00:06:53
Brett
And maybe even putting aside, yeah, the vinegars and that kind of thing from like ah the certified organic, so the so-called certified organic um herbicides.
00:06:59
Plant People
None of that.
00:07:02
Brett
But ah outside of that, then you there's still distinctions, cultural and mechanical.
00:07:03
Alexis
Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:06
Alexis
Cultural, mechanical. And, you know, Ray, chime chime in here. I tend to think of cultural weed control as things like rotational planting or cover crops.
00:07:16
Plant People
Yeah. Suppression. Yeah.
00:07:18
Alexis
Suppress, like, yeah, cover crops. And then mechanical, you know, is I think the obvious, like, tractors and tilling or even hand-hoeing. But I think solarization is one of those ones, which, you know, is you know putting down a black tarp where, like, i think –
00:07:31
Plant People
Yeah, it's its own category.
00:07:36
Alexis
people tend to put it in cultural, but you're like, okay, I'm using a tool to do like, that's not a natural tool. So to me, it's kind of mechanical.
00:07:44
Plant People
Mechanically cover the ground.
00:07:46
Alexis
Right. And so that's where I think like a lot of these things are, um,
00:07:49
Brett
It's thermodynamic weed control.
00:07:51
Alexis
Yeah, they're intertwined. And like, if you're using cover crop, for example, you have to use some sort of mechanical thing to kill off the cover crop, right? Usually most, you know, crimp it or you're even mowing it.
00:07:51
Plant People
e It's own category.
00:08:01
Plant People
Cramp it or cut it or yeah.
00:08:03
Alexis
Even if it dies, you have to mow it. You have to do something. So um that's why they kind of blend together for me. um And I don't know, I think the word culture... is something like what I think of, you know, like grandma hoeing in the garden, right?
00:08:18
Alexis
Like she's doing mechanical control, but it's part of a culture.
00:08:19
Plant People
Yeah.
00:08:21
Alexis
And so so the words just, you know, in my brain kind of blend together.
00:08:24
Plant People
this It's such an awesome topic for me. And I know we've talked about me being a vampire before, but ah going, going way back in ye olden days, but it's pretty incredible to me. We, we did several acres, you know, um grew up with lots of things on the farm, but we had lots of things that need to be cultivated, tobacco among them, lots of, you know, vegetable crops.
00:08:44
Plant People
But at that time, two things in the very beginning, my earliest memories are first of all, no irrigation, which is pretty incredible.
00:08:50
Alexis
Mm.
00:08:51
Plant People
no irrigation, but we had some land that you know helped us out with that, some nice loamy soil that held moisture.
00:08:51
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:08:57
Plant People
But the second biggest thing was we only had mechanical cultivation when things were in the field. Now, when tobacco plants were being grown, we used methyl bromide for weed control there.
00:09:07
Plant People
But as far as in the field, there was only one option, and that was mechanical weed control. That was cultivation with a tractor, or yes, my father made me learn how to cultivate with a five-point plow and a mule cultivator, so did a lot of that.
00:09:19
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:09:20
Plant People
And I mean, that was surprisingly effective and still done to this day in certain communities, but only mechanical cultivation. And we did things on a pretty good scale and made a pretty good living of things, but with absolutely no chemical inputs.
00:09:35
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:09:35
Plant People
And we had some, you know, with three brothers and a sister and some uncles to help out, but it was all hoeing the tobacco, chopping it out.
00:09:43
Plant People
you know, ah old school, old school, but pretty incredible in my mind to think back on those days where it was strictly mechanical weed control. There was no other option, no other way that we did things.
00:09:53
Alexis
I guess.
00:09:55
Plant People
And to look at where we are today with all the options that we may not be talking about today, all the chemical pre and post and all of that. But it's it kind of grounds me in the fact that when someone's approaching like a new producer,
00:10:09
Plant People
they're approaching growing something. I usually start from the very base. You know, last week we had Joe Kuzman on and he talked about the approachability of growing giant pumpkins. And I love his take on that because he said, you don't have to do everything at a super high level at first.
00:10:26
Plant People
You can, you know, get a seed and put it in the ground and see where it goes. And I love his take on that. And that's kind of where we were at in growing crops. You know, we had a certain tolerance for weeds.
00:10:38
Plant People
But when we did have to do weed control, the you know the easiest thing we would do is mechanical weed control. was very straightforward. There was no such thing as weed resistance to our mechanical methods for the most part.
00:10:50
Alexis
Yeah.
00:10:51
Plant People
and that was amazing.
00:10:51
Alexis
Yeah.
00:10:51
Plant People
We just didn't worry about any of that.
00:10:52
Alexis
yeah
00:10:53
Plant People
It was very labor intensive and that brings its own issues. But usually when i'm working with new producers, I start with the simplest methods first and we cover that. And there may be better better methods, more advanced methods.
00:11:05
Plant People
when they're ready for that, we talk about that. But mechanical weed control is like near and dear to my heart because the, you know, sort of the formative years of my life, that's all that we did in farming was mechanical weed control.
00:11:07
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:11:17
Plant People
That's it. End of story.
00:11:18
Brett
well ray without without outing your vampiric past um what what was the year like the decade time period that we're talking about when you were doing that yeah
00:11:27
Plant People
Earliest memories would have been the eighties, the eighties going into mid nineties. ah probably.
00:11:35
Brett
yeah well
00:11:35
Plant People
We started to get into irrigation in the mid-90s, of course, early 90s. But as far as weed control, we still were very conservative on chemical usage, both you know in the eastern part of the ah state where grew up in the foothills.
00:11:48
Plant People
you know Availability, you had to drive a long ways to get those chemicals.
00:11:50
Brett
Mm-hmm.
00:11:52
Plant People
But my father used the tried and true methods of you know cultivation and hoeing things out.
00:11:56
Alexis
yeah there's not there's not a ton of chemicals you can use in specialty crops anyways so like i mean it's not mm-hmm
00:12:01
Plant People
No, and there's not a lot of options, especially at that time. They've advanced a little bit, but at that time that was especially true. So yeah, yeah, that was in the eighties. I remember we just, you know, we attacked weeds from a very mechanical standpoint, brute force.
00:12:15
Brett
but This is something something that I think about um pretty regularly is that we are – there's plenty of – there's whole podcasts, whole series, whole films, books, everything dedicated to this concept. But
The Resurgence of Mechanical Weed Control
00:12:26
Brett
we exist in this really odd moment in – even with an agricultural history, which itself is an odd moment in the history of our planet where – Some of these things were even possible chemically.
00:12:40
Brett
it's It's just this thing that we sort of take for granted. And I've been thinking a lot about there was ah a particular ride that was at at Disney World and at Disneyland called the the World of Tomorrow or also known as Tomorrowland.
00:12:55
Plant People
Yeah. umland yeah
00:12:56
Alexis
Hmm.
00:12:57
Brett
And you would get on this cart and it would take you around and it would show you all. It was a very futuristic, forward-looking thing that in Disneyland opened in the 50s. And one of the things of all you know of all the things that Disney World or Disneyland could be talking about, one of them was agriculture.
00:13:12
Brett
And one of the multiple of the exhibits were actually sponsored by, they were called like the Monsanto Look at the Future. um You know, Monsanto, one of the major companies that now is has merged, but um there there was just this idea of like thinking about the future of agriculture and the future of growing things as this better use of technology. and I mean, I admire the optimism there, but it created this moment where like,
00:13:39
Brett
no one would have thought about it using it that way. Cause everybody was thinking about but mostly mechanical cultivation at that point.
00:13:44
Plant People
oh
00:13:44
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:13:44
Brett
This, this predates a lot of the roundup ready corn and beans and things where you could even do that.
00:13:48
Plant People
Sure.
00:13:50
Brett
And so you had to think about, and so as much as I do not want to say, oh the past was always better than the present because that generally wasn't true unless, you know, you were a white guy with some money.
00:14:01
Brett
um There were some things that, that, you know, that we're returning to now or thinking about now in the face of herbicide resistance and other stuff like that.
00:14:01
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:14:09
Brett
that's where mechanical weed cultivation becomes this all old things made new again. And I just think about it like situating it in a little bit of a bigger historical context.
00:14:15
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:14:21
Plant People
Yeah.
00:14:22
Brett
It always just sort of just blows my mind that we just keep coming we keep coming back to um back in 2023 when fertilizer prices, when fertilizer and input prices were super high,
00:14:35
Brett
There were people starting to plant Lespedeza again as a cover crop that fixes nitrogen to help offset their fertilizer costs. Well, that was something that was really commonplace in the thirties.
00:14:44
Plant People
yeah
00:14:45
Brett
And it's just those, ah those funny little um nods to the vintage, but also let's embrace what's going on now ah that I think within this mechanical, this mechanical weed cultivation or weed control, it's a really good example of that because at its, at its heart,
00:14:49
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:15:03
Brett
Uh, when I think of mechanical weed cultivation, I think of pulling plants, pulling weeds out of the ground, more or less, including the roots and stalks by dragging a piece of steel through the ground.
00:15:16
Plant People
and
00:15:16
Alexis
and
00:15:16
Brett
That's what a lot of it is. And whether that's pulled by a human or that's pulled by a tractor or pulled by a horse, Um, that's at its heart, so but the simp simplicity of it, but there's some other, you know, some complexities there that maybe we can talk about.
00:15:28
Plant People
Lots of nuances there. Yeah.
00:15:30
Brett
Um, and, and new technologies that are taking this old concept and doing it a little bit better, doing it a little bit more efficiently.
00:15:33
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:15:37
Brett
Um, Yeah, i think I think the first time that I, my my parents or my dad definitely was into some of the chemical stuff. you know We put down pre-emergent fertilizer, then come back with herbicide or with a you know Roundup or whatever, depending on what it was.
00:15:54
Brett
And it wasn't until I did a one semester thing out at the South Farm that I saw things like scuffle hose and
00:16:03
Alexis
Oh, yeah.
00:16:03
Plant People
um
00:16:04
Brett
ah the kind of triangle or pyramid shaped hose and stuff like that.
00:16:06
Plant People
Yeah.
00:16:08
Brett
And the hand cultivation and pull behind tractors and and all that kind of stuff. um
00:16:13
Alexis
Oh yeah. one That's a ah fun thing. i I learned about the scuffle hoe or hula hoe is how I learned learned um a name or a circle hoe.
00:16:21
Plant People
Yeah.
00:16:24
Alexis
There's like a bunch of names for it. But I did an internship at the UK Arboretum ah in Fayette County. If any of you haven't been there, you should go. It's beautiful. But anyways, I interned there. And so everything we were doing was, you know, pretty much hand weeding in a, you know bo base you know, botanical garden. Um,
00:16:43
Alexis
because there were people everywhere you know you never knew if a kid was going to run through a bed or there and there was also they were ornamental so there's nothing not a lot of herbicides labeled for ornamental use and so everything was mechanical uh and and by hand there and that's where i got introduced to the the stirrup hoe uh hulo whatever and uh since then it's been my probably my favorite thing ever i remember he was like yeah you just it's the push and the pull and i was like what and uh
00:17:02
Plant People
Yeah.
00:17:08
Plant People
Slide it. Yeah. it's I mean, you know, when you're on a farm and you have like ah a race, like at the beginning of the day, you have a race to get your favorite hoe because there are some good ones in the shed that you definitely want to get there and get those.
00:17:19
Alexis
yeah yeah uh-huh they have the right length handle and stuff like that yeah
00:17:24
Plant People
That would be one of them. Yeah. Just the perfect, they're lightweight and, or they get extra sharp when you sharpen them or whatever. But yeah, you know, you're at a certain point in your life when, you know, you have your your favorite mechanical like hand device, cultivator.
00:17:37
Alexis
Those are, yeah, when farmers get excited about tools, like mechanics get excited about new tools, farmers get excited about new tools too. And um like a good a good hoe or, you know, something for the tractor, even if they're just, you know, a shank, it's a piece of steel that you're running through the field.
00:17:46
Plant People
Yes. Now.
00:17:52
Alexis
It doesn't have moving parts.
00:17:53
Plant People
Something.
00:17:54
Alexis
you're just It just sits there. It's exciting.
00:17:57
Plant People
Well, that's a good point, too. They don't break down.
00:17:58
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:17:58
Plant People
They're not complicated. so That has its own value. and And you guys tell me if I'm making this up, like there's some been some really super cool mechanical cultivation, like hand implements in the past. Like I'm thinking of the Kentucky high wheel cultivator.
00:18:14
Plant People
Now, didn't that literally come out of Kentucky? did Do you guys know, like one of my favorite hand tools, it's like a little five point or four point mini cultivator, but it's literally got a high wheel in front with a little cultivator on the back.
00:18:24
Alexis
and
00:18:26
Plant People
But I mean, so implements like that, a lot of those came out of Kentucky.
00:18:30
Alexis
and
00:18:30
Plant People
ah like And I think that's one of the more famous examples, but I think it's called a Kentucky High Wheel cultivator.
00:18:34
Brett
Yeah. And the the wheel is, the wheel is often metal.
00:18:35
Alexis
Yeah, they still...
00:18:37
Brett
There's not really like a tread on it.
00:18:38
Plant People
yes yes.
00:18:39
Brett
Right.
00:18:40
Alexis
Yeah.
00:18:40
Plant People
Yeah, that's an example, one of those.
00:18:40
Brett
My, my assumption is that, and my assumption is that's coming out of ah a tradition of small scale, intensive hand cultivation of something like tobacco where you're, you're, I mean, ah you could do five acres with a small family by hand mostly and, or more, you know, some people did more than that, but um it's a little bit you could get in and out of the rows and all that stuff.
00:18:41
Alexis
Yeah.
00:18:47
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:18:48
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:00
Alexis
And sometimes on land that's not, yeah, land that's not great for tractor movement.
00:19:03
Plant People
Yeah.
00:19:06
Alexis
Like maybe you're doing, you know, and end mules eat and cost money.
00:19:06
Plant People
Yeah.
00:19:09
Brett
Yeah.
00:19:09
Plant People
yeah
00:19:10
Alexis
And, you know, so if you're just doing some stuff, small stuff.
00:19:11
Plant People
Yeah.
00:19:14
Alexis
yeah those Yeah, those are nice. i wrote I had a friend who I remember how excited she got. She got a little um grant for tractor. tools from Kentucky State University when she was starting her farm.
00:19:26
Alexis
And that was one of the things she bought and just her excitement on being able to go from hoeing with, you know, just by, by hand that way um to the exact same hoe, but on a wheel where she could move it a little bit more easily.
00:19:40
Alexis
ah And she the, just how excited she was for something like that.
00:19:43
Plant People
I was, when I first used those, so I get that excitement. When I first used one, it was in the garden plots.
00:19:46
Alexis
Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:48
Plant People
I think it was green beans. We were trying to, you know, you have to cast like the soil up at a certain angle. So it covers in between the plants. There's like an art to it. But we, I used my first experience with a high wheel was doing that.
00:20:00
Plant People
And it was pretty cool. I was like, okay, this device is way cooler than, than it should be so it was sort of like we had to learn on the mule and a particular farm because dad just thought everybody should know how to do that i don't know but we use that a lot and you know mule cultivation and then we graduated later on he would let us use and i'm going to throw a trade name is a tory built it was one of the bigger ones really old school from the 60s i think it was called a horse it was the biggest kind of tory built walk behind cultivator basically it had attachments it was a solid gear drive really cool piece of equipment
00:20:08
Alexis
Yeah.
00:20:13
Alexis
He's not wrong.
00:20:22
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:20:23
Brett
Mm-hmm.
00:20:31
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:20:34
Plant People
You know, they just don't wear out made during that era. But we graduated to that. And I was, it always struck me. i was like, oh, dad, just, you know, let me have the tractor. I was a kid. I wanted to get on the dang tractor.
00:20:45
Plant People
So we went from the mule, then we went to the Troy built implement the walk behind cultivator. And I had an appreciation for just how much really growing you could do with just an implement like that.
00:20:57
Plant People
And I remember dad going over in great detail.
00:20:58
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:21:01
Plant People
I said, give me this thing. I'm going to roll with this thing. And he's like, no, no, before you start out, you know, in the spring you cultivated this step. And in the summer, when we want to preserve moisture, you know, he you cultivate at a more shallow depth that we're trying to do is, you know,
00:21:16
Plant People
clipway Like he went over this whole process and that was the nuance behind something as simple as what we commonly call a garden tiller, garden cultivator.
00:21:19
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:21:22
Brett
you
00:21:25
Plant People
There's all these nuances to using that thing that I never would have thought about. Deep tillage versus skim tillage and actually using the depth bar, which I would have thrown the thing in the weeds and just sunk it down and rolled with it because I'm a dude.
00:21:38
Plant People
That's what I would have done. but And he stopped me. He said, no, you have no idea what you're doing. And he was right. I was 10, 11 years old.
00:21:44
Alexis
yeah
00:21:45
Plant People
And ah and like there's all these nuances to mechanical cultivation that really, to be involved in that process, there's there's a lot more to it than you would think.
00:21:55
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:21:56
Brett
I think part of part of what I'm hearing from you there is is that there's this element of of thinking through it and strategizing.
00:22:03
Plant People
Yes, absolutely.
00:22:03
Brett
And I could say, you because when you're when you're adding mechanization and mechanization beyond just maybe a a hand hoe or something like that, what you're talking about is I'm going to try to make a system that allows me to do a larger area better.
00:22:03
Plant People
Absolutely.
00:22:19
Plant People
Yes.
00:22:19
Alexis
ah
00:22:19
Brett
And also more quickly. And so what ends up happening is having been a part of some of these schemes in the past, you might end up spending three or four hours dialing in, adjusting, making tweaks to this piece of equipment.
00:22:31
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:22:32
Plant People
not Yeah.
00:22:35
Brett
that you then end up saving 20 hours by doing it well out in the field. But it's sort of this, oh, we want to get going. We want to get going. Let's get out here and do this thing rather than hold on a second now, Ray.
00:22:43
Plant People
none
00:22:46
Plant People
Yeah.
00:22:47
Brett
We're going to do this in this way now.
00:22:48
Plant People
Easy.
00:22:48
Brett
And this, you know, a little bit of training now is going to keep you from from messing with that later. And um I think, man, if you get around people who have thought about this and are into this, ah Shout out to our friend of the pod, Sarah Gurkink.
00:23:02
Brett
Shout out to a friend of the pod, Neil Wilson.
00:23:03
Alexis
See
00:23:05
Brett
ah Shout out to a friend of the pod, ah the Mark Williams, the chair of the hortic horticulture department. These people are deeply dorky. about this stuff and it's really cool to witness because you just these slight changes of some of the angle of the implement you mentioned depth even the speed you know it's like you're going to need to be at like the top end of second gear maybe or maybe you're going to be like you don't want to go out of first gear for this just because it doesn't you know it has to throw soil versus digging it versus whatever um
00:23:15
Alexis
you, Raph. Mm-hmm.
00:23:23
Plant People
Yeah. Oh yeah.
00:23:25
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:23:35
Plant People
Yes. There's a high amount of precision there. You wouldn't think there would be, but there's a high amount of precision, lots of considerations for all those things. And it's, it's pretty crazy.
00:23:46
Plant People
Yeah.
00:23:46
Brett
And some of these people do it.
00:23:47
Alexis
Yeah, like...
00:23:48
Brett
so I was going some of these people do it for the love of the game. Right.
00:23:51
Alexis
Yeah.
00:23:52
Plant People
Because it's cool.
00:23:53
Brett
But, but why? and And Alexis, if you were going to say something to this point, you can mention that before, but I'm just like, why, why would someone want to do mechanical cultivation?
00:24:06
Brett
Period. Like why, why even mess with this?
00:24:06
Alexis
Well... I feel like I have to, um and maybe it's not an elephant in the room, in this room, but it feels like it.
Challenges with Chemical Weed Control in Specialty Crops
00:24:14
Alexis
And some of the some of the some of the other other rooms that I'm in, you know, there's a big push pushed towards no-till.
00:24:14
Plant People
It's a small hippo.
00:24:21
Alexis
And I think, and and that's wonderful.
00:24:22
Plant People
Wow.
00:24:23
Alexis
And I do a lot of low-till, no-till personally. Like, i I love the idea of that and and the way it works. um But one thing One thing I'd say is most no-till growers will tell you they've tilled once, right?
00:24:36
Alexis
They tilled that initial time to break, you know, break the soil, to break up the, you know, weeds to sort of like get things going.
00:24:37
Plant People
wow
00:24:39
Brett
Thank
00:24:43
Alexis
um And I know this isn't about like soil in general, but I just have to say the these people, like the people that you mentioned um have set, you know, they're such... nerds in the best way about something like weed control and the mechanics and the tools and all that kind of stuff.
00:24:59
Alexis
But they simultaneously, those people care about the soil health. And so when Ray was saying how his dad was like very particular about when you went, you know, did tillage at a certain depth and things like that, um a lot of that has to do with, you know, keeping your soil healthy, keeping your microbes healthy.
00:25:04
Plant People
oh
00:25:18
Alexis
And even if you're doing low till, um or no-till there are is mechanical stuff, right? Running an inch or two over top um cultivating for those little seedlings that are coming up is not destroying your microbiome. um It's not hurting anything, but what it is is taking out those weeds at the top, right? And so um I just felt like i had to like kind of mention that because I think that there can be this ugly like tillage is really, really bad. Well, no, people who care about tillage and are into it and are are really great,
00:25:51
Alexis
growers are into it and and they're into their soil health as well and so you know there is a balance there that people are trying to strike um if they're into you know mechanical weed control so i just kind of wanted to like grease that in yeah
00:25:55
Plant People
Yeah.
00:26:00
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:26:02
Plant People
Everything has to work at scale. I mean, there's a scale for everything. So that's a perfect example, Alexis. Yeah. I mean, everything's got that. It may work at five acres, but what's your considerations at, you know, one acre versus a hundred acres?
00:26:16
Alexis
mm-hmm mm-hmm
00:26:16
Plant People
Yeah, absolutely.
00:26:17
Brett
so why so So there are some people for whom this mechanical cultivation might even be too much. um But for so for for a lot of people, on the other hand, they would say, well, you're not going to disturb the soil at all if you just spray.
00:26:22
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:26:30
Brett
um what what why Why might someone want to do this instead of that?
00:26:37
Alexis
I think the first thing would be, I mean, we work in the specialty crop world, right? And so ah there's not a ton of herbicides labeled that you can just grow any so diverse.
00:26:47
Alexis
most Most specialty crop farms are diverse, right?
00:26:47
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:26:50
Alexis
At least in Kentucky, ah even the largest farms are growing, you know, 10, 15 different crops. um And so there're there's likely nothing labeled that they can use. It's not going to damage ah that crop.
00:27:03
Alexis
If by some chance there is, um you know, there's there's other considerations on how they're planting, you know, do they need to have raised beds? So there's a lot more to that where tillage just might be necessary to even get the right drainage that you want.
00:27:20
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:27:20
Plant People
And this is a big discussion Alexis has helped me out with with the local farmer in my neck of the woods. But it's exactly that issue because we're trying to rotate between specialty crops, in this case, floral crops, rotate between that and traditional row crops and using pre-emergence.
00:27:36
Plant People
Well, come to find out the more specialty crops, you know, in this case, flowers, different flower crops are much more susceptible than row crops to these pre-emergence, even after 18 months.
00:27:37
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:27:47
Plant People
It's a real issue. And when I went around and around. I've talked to very smart people like Alexis and other people within our university and other universities. And, you know, i'm like, there's always a solution. But in this case, there's not a solution for a herbicide, a pre-emergent herbicide, because of that sensitivity of certain crops in the rotation, three-year rotation scheme.
00:28:01
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:28:08
Plant People
It's just not going to work.
00:28:08
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:28:09
Plant People
So now when I go out to make a site visit again, I'm going to talk a lot about mechanical cultivation. That's going way old school. But in this case, I mean, that's where that's where I have to go. And it points back to the conversation of specialty crops. In this case, that's exactly what's going on.
00:28:25
Plant People
It's an agritourism venue for the most part, and it's just not going to fit into the rotation schedule because of the nature of the operation. There is not a good option um in this case.
00:28:35
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:28:36
Plant People
So, yeah, perfect example.
00:28:38
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:28:39
Brett
I think stepping a little outside of our normal wheelhouse, there's also um in the in the world of row crops, there are both, some people have some environmental or ideological reasons for one way or the other, or some other people have just market, ah the persuasiveness of the market to try and grow either certified organic or non-GMO, non-genetically engineered, modified ah organisms.
00:29:05
Brett
um Because I know, for instance, the bourbon industry, there are certain distillers that prefer to buy either ah non-GMO corn or they prefer or they will only buy non-GMO corn or even heritage corns, varieties of corn for their bourbon.
00:29:08
Plant People
Hmm.
00:29:20
Brett
Well, guess what? Those don't have the advantage of the genetic engineering that allows them to get sprayed with a herbicide and die. not die That's fundamentally what Roundup Ready corn is, is this genetic engineering that allows it you to spray something that would kill normal corn right over top of it.
00:29:30
Alexis
Right.
00:29:39
Brett
It hits the weeds, kills the weeds, and the corn stays alive.
00:29:43
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:29:43
Brett
a crazy impressive feat of technology. I mean, you just, it's like humans are wild, um but there are markets and there are other reasons why so know some consumers, some producers disagree with that.
00:29:53
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:29:57
Brett
And um so if you're pursuing those markets, One way or another, you don't have access to those herbicides. So in even in a ah certified organic specialty crop operation, if you have black plastic ah of of tomatoes or corn, you can't spray Roundup in between the rows.
00:30:17
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:30:17
Brett
You have to do something else to to make be able to to handle that.
00:30:22
Brett
if if you're you know If you're certified organic, you can't use those technologies. The other thing is the over-reliance on some of those technologies and and poor you know practices of of applying these things have led to resistance to herbicides.
00:30:31
Plant People
Thank you.
00:30:38
Brett
There's a variety of different examples of that, but and and there's been efforts within the conventional world to address that and change that and and make sure that you're rotating and doing these these different things. But ah at its heart, there are certain weeds that are becoming resistant to these herbicides and as um As Ray said earlier, it's hard to develop resistance to having your roots ripped up out of the ground with a hoe or with a a cultivator or something like that.
00:31:02
Plant People
With piece of steel or something. Yeah.
00:31:04
Brett
Yeah.
00:31:05
Alexis
Yeah.
00:31:05
Brett
And so um I think that like those those are all different reasons why people would go through the pain of trying to figure this out when there are these chemical technologies available. Um, and I, I just think that that's something that it's important to, to understand why you're doing something other than it just sounds cool.
00:31:21
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:31:22
Brett
And Alexis is doing it. So everybody should do it, which is basically why I do things, but for the rest of you, uh, that might be, be something to, to consider.
00:31:29
Alexis
don't Don't follow my example. I like just mowed down my my overwintered cover crop in like two weeks ago.
00:31:37
Plant People
Do as I say, do as I say.
00:31:38
Brett
It's early spring somewhere.
00:31:39
Plant People
what What I'm hearing from all of this is is ah it's so cool that that there's room for all of these methods.
00:31:40
Alexis
yeah
00:31:45
Plant People
I mean, we work with like multiple modes, multiple methods day in and day out, depending on the scope and scale of an operation. And I am just pumped. I mean, because it's part of my background, I'm still pumped that there's a thriving community of suppliers and equipment and all this cool emerging technology
00:32:01
Brett
Thank you.
Advancements in Mechanical Weed Control
00:32:03
Plant People
on kind of mechanical weed control. And as they say, it's not your father's mechanical weed control because it's advanced, hasn't it? And I know you guys know a lot more ah about that than I do, but I'm just constantly amazed at small base equipment and the direction that it's going and it's incorporation of advanced technologies, but yet it's still mechanical weed control.
00:32:26
Alexis
yeah yeah the like
00:32:27
Plant People
and And I love it. I love all of it. Love all of it
00:32:29
Alexis
Yeah, the scale that you can you can be at like ah you know we We work with these different size farms and a lot of them are you know using hand tools and maybe walk-behind tractors.
00:32:42
Plant People
her
00:32:43
Alexis
Well, walk-behind tractors are great. I love mine. And they have you know a lot of new stuff, a lot of new implements. I mean, you can get a plastic bed layer and a bed shaper on a walk-behind tractor.
00:32:55
Alexis
So I mean, like that
00:32:56
Plant People
And also make tiny bells of hay.
00:32:58
Alexis
And they also make tiny bales of hay. um And, you know, flail mowers and all of these different things that used to only be available ah as like a three-point hitch on a large tractor, ah which wasn't always to scale on some of our farms that are, you know, number one, just small or just aren't, you know, they're rolling enough that a big tractor doesn't make sense.
00:33:00
Plant People
I love it. Mm-hmm.
00:33:18
Plant People
Yeah.
00:33:18
Alexis
And so, you know, supporting these smaller farms, you know, with these kind of like new implements that are also most of the time, not all the time, most like the mini hay baler is very expensive, but most of the time these things are a lot more cost effective too, right?
00:33:31
Plant People
Yeah. yeah
00:33:34
Alexis
So a small farm that's just starting can ah afford these things that's going to really get them to like a next level at a much more minimum cost.
00:33:45
Alexis
And ah you know, those advancements in themselves, it's not that the necessarily that the technology itself is new, like a flail mower is being around for a long time um or, you know, certain types of tillers, but they're available on literally a smaller scale.
00:34:00
Alexis
And I think that that's like so cool.
00:34:01
Plant People
the
00:34:03
Alexis
And so getting so much more popular and there's different brands and they're high quality and shout out Italy for just, you know, making cool s stuff.
00:34:12
Plant People
Stuff that lasts a long time.
00:34:12
Alexis
But that's fun.
00:34:13
Plant People
Yeah.
00:34:13
Alexis
But yeah, but then and then
00:34:13
Brett
full disclosure Full disclosure, Alexis' main name is Amorese.
00:34:16
Brett
She has Italian descent. this is pro pro-Italian propaganda.
00:34:18
Plant People
She had to throw out the Italians.
00:34:20
Alexis
Shout out to my Italian bros.
00:34:21
Brett
Amorese, how dare you?
00:34:22
Alexis
ah family
00:34:23
Plant People
Don't surprise if cheese comes into this conversation.
00:34:24
Alexis
um
00:34:26
Plant People
I'm just saying.
00:34:28
Alexis
I mean, now you know where it comes from.
00:34:29
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:29
Alexis
ah but and But like going up to, you know, we've got you know farms who are doing, you know, 20, 30 acres of vegetable production um full time and they're using camera guided equipment.
00:34:29
Brett
Quattro formaggi.
00:34:43
Alexis
ah Which is something we normally think of for our row crop people. ah But they are there is technology available now for weed control systems that are camera guided. And so, ah you know, it takes a little bit more ah mind usage off of the farmer.
00:35:01
Alexis
ah or, you know, enables more people on the farm to be able to drive the tractor.
00:35:05
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:35:05
Alexis
ah And then, you know, you can send them out and and get things when they're small and ah not, you know, accidentally wait too long because, you know, the the head farmer couldn't get out in the tractor because he's doing something else. So it's just, it's crazy the things that they've come up with. And I know ah we took a group, Sarah, Sarah, who we've shouted earlier with the Organic Association of Kentucky,
00:35:30
Alexis
ah took a group. ah thank Thank you, SARE money for that of growers and some technical providers.
00:35:34
Brett
Shout out to Sair. Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, Southern Region.
00:35:39
Plant People
S-A-R-A
00:35:39
Brett
Shout them out.
00:35:40
Alexis
We love them. We appreciate them. We appreciate the they the great resources. If you need stuff on cover crops or anything, um obviously CCD, but we also relate, go through SARE. So great stuff there.
00:35:52
Alexis
But ah they you know paid for us to take a group of growers up to the... Midwest Mechanical Weed Control Field Day, which was held at one of the Purdue farms. And, you know, it was sort of, it was row crops as well as specialty crops, but it was the whole gamut.
Innovative Weed Control Technologies
00:36:10
Alexis
It was, you know, they had that high wheel hoe that we talked about earlier, but all the way up to literal robots that are just set loose in a field.
00:36:20
Alexis
And they can really only do one crop. i Maybe, maybe two, but, you know, they they plant it The robot will literally plant the seed And then go through and weed it because it has mapped where all the seeds are supposed to be.
00:36:34
Alexis
And it's solar powered. And so literally you can, you drop it off and you tell it where it is on the map. And then you just come back for it in a few hours and your field is weeded.
00:36:46
Alexis
And that's just bonkers. And it's not like millions and millions of dollars. i mean, and from a um From a ah perspective of these really large tractors that literally...
00:37:00
Alexis
I'm dying.
00:37:00
Brett
I'm going to launch you. You need you to get a drink of water.
00:37:02
Plant People
Yeah, Alexis needs to get a drink.
00:37:03
Brett
Yeah. so it' So, so some, yeah, that there, the world of agriculture is this crazy world of scale with different amounts of money sounding reasonable or sounding crazy, just depending on what type of farming you're doing.
00:37:04
Plant People
I mean, yeah.
00:37:04
Alexis
I'm so excited.
00:37:07
Plant People
Choked up.
00:37:16
Brett
A combine that costs a million dollars to some people would give them a heart attack. And to some people is that's just kind of doing business.
00:37:21
Alexis
yeah
00:37:23
Plant People
Yeah.
00:37:23
Brett
And so you were saying that these robots are, are in a more affordable range. Yeah.
00:37:29
Alexis
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're like, I think the one we saw in action, which could do, you know, several acres at a time, um was like 200,000, which again, when youre when you're talking scale of like the the combine is literally costing 500,000 and up, ah is pretty chill considering the amount of time you can just walk away to go do something else.
00:37:49
Plant People
Well, and labor adds up quickly too, doesn't it? I don't know how many, you know, what you could substitute that in for the amount of labor.
00:37:52
Alexis
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:56
Plant People
But i mean, just seeing these, like you said, just little mechanical, would have terrified me in the 80s to see a mechanical robot looking dog out there weeding the field.
00:37:57
Alexis
yeah
00:38:04
Alexis
Terrified you, but in a cool way.
00:38:05
Alexis
I know you.
00:38:05
Plant People
But it would really, i would have been trying to ride that thing.
00:38:08
Plant People
I mean, I'm not lying, but ah you you mentioned so solar power, and that's a whole other thing. like I get on YouTube, and I'm always looking for battery-powered stuff because I'm super interested in it.
00:38:19
Plant People
And I see that some of this stuff is starting to approach things like not only AI and the optics behind it. Um, but it's, it's still mechanical weed control, but it's very advanced. And in some cases it's using like battery powered or solar powered, even like you said, but like it had, some of them have lasers.
00:38:30
Alexis
It's smart.
00:38:36
Plant People
That's my goal in life is to have a mechanical weeder laser dog that can shoot lasers at the bad guy weeds.
00:38:41
Alexis
Can I...
00:38:43
Plant People
Yeah.
00:38:44
Alexis
Can I tell you, so at that field day, there was a guy from Michigan, and I wish I could remember his name, but his research was on like electrocuting Yeah.
00:38:59
Plant People
When you really don't like cockle burrs, you just electrocute them.
00:39:00
Alexis
Listen, this is – it used the energy in the air. So it's like similar to lightning. It's like static electricity or something like that. I'm going to say this all wrong. And if he hears this, I apologize. But I think I'm getting the gist of it.
00:39:15
Alexis
We were talking over lunch. It was very hot that day. Anyways, so – and it shoots this beam. And if you're not watching on YouTube right now, watch me make weird hand movements. You should go do that.
00:39:26
Plant People
Hmm.
00:39:26
Alexis
But it shoots this beam between two points. And anything – you use it on a crop. So you know your crop is roughly at 12 inches high. So anything above 12 inches, it hit it shoots this beam and that it crosses those weeds above 12 inches cross through that beam.
00:39:43
Alexis
And it literally electrocutes it down to the root and kills it all the way down to the root using like the air. Like there's no, you know, fuel. i mean, maybe other than to run the wheels that it's on. And I'm like, excuse me, what?
00:39:58
Alexis
What? That is awesome.
00:40:00
Plant People
This is not a mule and and three-point cultivator.
00:40:03
Brett
So there's a Michigan, there's a Michigan state like fact sheet called basics of electrical weed control.
00:40:03
Alexis
That is the.
00:40:08
Brett
Yeah.
00:40:08
Alexis
ah Okay, we're going to have link it.
00:40:10
Brett
yeah
00:40:11
Alexis
Yeah, I need to go through and read that.
00:40:11
Brett
I don't know that. I don't know the person, thesons the person's, the author's name isn't listed, which is a bit collectivist, which I respect.
00:40:12
Plant People
like a field trip to me.
00:40:16
Alexis
Weird.
00:40:20
Alexis
But yeah, I mean, that's mechanical weed control, ah but just not in the way we think about it and where mechanical weed control might be going in the future. um Because...
00:40:20
Brett
It is from extension.
00:40:31
Alexis
you you You can't mess up if you're electrocuting it down to the root. And like, I don't know. but I'm a little scared of the plant that develops resistance to electricity.
00:40:40
Plant People
ah Yes, I know.
00:40:40
Brett
Bro, yeah. It's splicing.
00:40:43
Plant People
So it's like it's like this marriage of super high tech and like super old school. I mean, this is really that that juxtaposition in my brain is really jiving. I'm like, I like it. it's like ah It's like a ha hot rod cruiser that's electrified.
00:40:55
Alexis
It's like an electric banjo.
00:40:56
Plant People
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Something like that. But I mean, so exciting times for all of this. I mean,
Upcoming Kentucky Mechanical Weed Control Field Day
00:41:04
Brett
Well, so the, the Alexis is really burying the lead here and, and staying humble because not only, not only did you go to the Midwest weed control field day, but you and Sarah with support from ah transition to organic partnership project funds, and as well as from so money from SARE and support from lots of these vendors, you you're bringing, you're bringing the mechanical weed control to Kentucky.
00:41:05
Plant People
good stuff.
00:41:13
Alexis
and
00:41:24
Plant People
Thank you.
00:41:29
Brett
Is that right?
00:41:30
Alexis
What up? Yes, there is a Kentucky first ever Kentucky Mechanical Weed Control Field Day, and ah it is specifically aimed at specialty crop producers where ah other ones, the Midwest one, which is big and has been around for a long time and is awesome.
00:41:34
Brett
Thank you.
00:41:46
Alexis
is a mix. So it's, you know, part specialty crop, but it's also row crop focused equipment as well. Ours is solely for specialty crop growers and it is at a big range of scale. So ah we will have things like hand tools. So if you're, you know, a brand new farmer and you're like, I cannot keep buying my tools from the, you know,
00:42:09
Alexis
local place and having them break in a season or, you know, you're getting fiberglass in your hands because I have been been there and you're just looking for tools, maybe better to get in between. You're like, I can't find the right hoe to get in between my plants.
00:42:22
Alexis
We got you. If you're ready to move up into the next stage into that walk behind tractor, but you're not really sure If you can even run one or you want to see one in action, you want to see the implements, you want to you know touch it, feel it, watch it go, ah we got you. Earth Tools will be there, which is a Kentucky, and they ship nationwide, but they happen to be located in Kentucky. So shout out to Earth Tools. We love them very much. um but And then if you're there and you're ready to even you know bump up to something larger, you say, I need to decrease my labor or something like that, and I want to go up to four-wheel tractors,
00:42:58
Alexis
ah We've got a lot of implements coming in for for that. And so ah we'll be able to show. And then even, yes, camera-guided equipment. So Garford will be there with some camera-guided equipment. Earth Tools will be there.
00:43:11
Alexis
Tillmore will be there with some really awesome ah finger weeders, basket weeders, some new stuff that they've got ah out. And they're just kind of just launched it. So we'll be you'll be able to see it in action. And I think the best part, and when we took growers up to Purdue,
00:43:27
Alexis
You know, what they said was it's really scary to invest in new equipment, whether you're spending $100 or you're spending $100,000, right? If you're, whatever your scale is, it's hard to spend that money on something if you're not sure if it's going to work for you.
00:43:44
Alexis
And so being able to see it in action and a lot of times run it yourself, um you know, and and see if, you know, this is the right tool for you really will instill a lot of confidence in making sure that you're making a good investment for your farm,
00:43:58
Alexis
Again, whatever scale that's at. And I think that that's something really special. But we'll also have some um time, what we're calling choose your own adventure. And so there'll be things on solarization. So there's some research being done at you you know University of Kentucky South Farm, which is the horticulture research farm ah in Lexington, which is where this is being hosted.
00:44:20
Alexis
So there's some research being done on, ah you know, solarization as weed control and things along but those lines. So ah you'll be able to even see that if, you know, like I said, your scale...
00:44:32
Alexis
could be you know very different and how you might incorporate that into your weed control culture right on your farm. ah And so, yeah, we're really excited about it and having all these vendors. We'll have a lot of great educational vendors there too. So, SARE, Southern SARE will be there.
00:44:48
Alexis
ah Kentucky Horticulture Council, Kentucky State University will be you know be there talking about some of the grant opportunities that they have for purchasing things like equipment and education. um You know, Organic Association, this is a partnered thing, like we said, working with Sarah. but So there's just a lot to be offered there and really good food from our friends over at the Food Connection. They'll be making food with some local items.
00:45:12
Alexis
ah so And there'll be ice cream sandwiches. So if I haven't talked you into it already, i know you're jumping at the opportunity.
00:45:18
Plant People
All a good thing.
00:45:19
Brett
but But there's no such thing as a free ice cream sandwich, right?
00:45:19
Alexis
yeah
00:45:23
Alexis
Oh, no, we want your opinions for it.
00:45:26
Brett
Give us your evaluation.
00:45:27
Plant People
Is that the registration?
00:45:27
Brett
You get the ice cream sandwich.
00:45:28
Alexis
Yes.
00:45:29
Brett
Nobody gets hurt.
00:45:29
Alexis
yeah Nobody gets hurt. I will give you the ice cream sandwich in return for your very short, very quick evaluation and thoughts on the event. ah but But yeah, so ah we're we'll drop this link down in the show notes as well. But ah you can find that on our CCD website. And Brett, do you already have that pulled up?
00:45:52
Alexis
It's ccd.uky slash MW.
00:45:57
Brett
so Hold on, back it up. ccd.uky.edu
00:45:59
Plant People
Wait a minute.
00:46:02
Alexis
Okay.
00:46:03
Brett
slash. And if you, if you just go to that main page, it's up at the top in the main menu, but it's mechanical weed control MWCFD.
00:46:07
Alexis
Yes.
00:46:12
Brett
But i would just go to the CCD website.
00:46:12
Alexis
Yes.
00:46:15
Brett
Give her a break folks. She's only been here a year. Okay. So remembering what the, what our email address is.
00:46:18
Plant People
only Only. Only one growing season.
00:46:22
Brett
mean, what yeah, yeah.
00:46:24
Alexis
I'm just very, I mean, the acronyms are are wild and out here.
00:46:27
Brett
She's more of a plant person than a letter person per se.
00:46:29
Alexis
Yeah.
00:46:30
Plant People
We don't need those letters and plants.
00:46:31
Alexis
But yeah, yeah. So I just, we're really excited about it because we know and we've seen in action how it really helps farmers um make good decisions that they're confident in and help.
00:46:44
Alexis
I'm just like pumped about it. So if you if you're interested in it, registration is up on our website now. And that we didn't mention the date yet. That's very important. It is on on a Tuesday. So September 23rd, hoping for good weather, but it will happen rain or shine.
00:47:02
Alexis
And we will, we have, we do have a rain plan in case you're worried. But ah yeah, I'm just really excited. There's a lot of great equipment, including ah if you're into this weed things,
00:47:13
Alexis
You'll know what this is. And if you're not, then you should come and see it. But UK has a stale seed better that was ah built by our good friend, Neil Wilson and ah department chair, Mark Williams.
00:47:24
Alexis
But the stale seed better is really, really cool. And if anything, just come come to see that.
00:47:30
Brett
give us Give us the elevator pitch on what a steel seed bedder does, Alexis.
00:47:31
Alexis
Yeah.
00:47:35
Alexis
Oh, I'm going to do a bad job at this. um But ah no, you've actually run the machine. I've not actually run it.
00:47:43
Brett
this is this is my This is my floor. I'm actually getting off the elevator now. Thank you. Thank you for for your time.
00:47:48
Alexis
Like you do it.
00:47:48
Plant People
We're done.
00:47:49
Brett
well Well, the idea of steel seed bedding in general is that you trick a round of weed seeds into germinating before you plant any of your stuff.
00:47:55
Alexis
Yes. yes
00:47:59
Brett
and you kill them because the reality is we think of weeds as just coming from the ground, but weeds, with the exception of some that grow from other things, they're they're coming from a seed in the ground. And so it's like ah it's like one weed ticket that has now been cached to grow
00:48:09
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:48:14
Brett
And it's gone. And over time, if you do that enough times, you start to reduce the weed pressure.
00:48:16
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:48:19
Brett
You start to reduce the weed seed bank that's in your soil. And so this weed stale seed bedding is you prepare the soil as if you're getting ready to plant. it You let ah one version or one round of seeds come up and then you kill them.
00:48:32
Brett
The question is then how to do that at scale, because it's easy to do that in ah a smaller, at a smaller scale.
00:48:35
Plant People
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
00:48:38
Brett
And so this is this really cool. It's kind of like a blend of some, um, shanks and a big rolling pin and some other stuff that you pull behind the tractor, but its main role is to go ahead and take out one or two or even three rounds of weeds before you plant so that now you're fighting, you're you're you're kind of getting out ahead of the weeds for the year, almost like the mechanical equivalent of a pre-emergent.
00:48:47
Alexis
Yeah.
00:48:55
Plant People
ah
00:48:59
Alexis
yeah yeah
00:49:03
Alexis
Yes. Yeah. I've got a really cool video on it. So when this episode, you know, airs and if you're listening to it, go to our Instagram at Hort Culture Podcast and I'll show i'll post the video up there.
00:49:15
Alexis
And so you can just see, and it's just, you know, for those of you who are like, oh, you know, I don't want to till too much. This is just getting that top layer like we talked about. So you're not disrupting those microbes and all those good things.
00:49:24
Plant People
and
00:49:25
Alexis
um You're just disrupting those ah baby weeds coming up. So it's
00:49:29
Brett
That was one of those scenarios where it took what felt like forever to get it dialed in. I wasn't even that involved.
00:49:33
Plant People
To dial that in, yeah.
00:49:34
Brett
I was just sort of watching and helping, but then you do and you're like, ah yeah.
00:49:35
Alexis
Yeah. Yeah. But once it is, man, oh, it's it's so great.
00:49:39
Plant People
I mean, that's pretty incredible. You're tricking the seeds, you're bringing them to light and heat source, know, all the things that seed, weed seeds need at that specific depth. And then you're like the bait and switch. You're like, boom, chop you down, then let your friends come up and then do the same thing.
00:49:49
Alexis
yeah Bye. Yeah. So. Yeah.
00:49:53
Plant People
I mean, sounds simple, but not an execution. Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
00:49:56
Alexis
Yes.
00:49:57
Brett
Yeah, there there there's just gonna be a lot of dorks there who all think about this and care about it that you can bounce ideas with.
00:49:57
Plant People
Look forward to seeing that one myself.
00:49:57
Alexis
so
00:49:59
Plant People
That's awesome.
00:50:00
Alexis
yeah
00:50:02
Brett
That that for me is one of those huge points of value that's harder to, you know, how do you think about this?
00:50:02
Alexis
yes Talking to other farmers.
00:50:06
Plant People
Yeah.
00:50:07
Alexis
Yeah, totally.
00:50:08
Alexis
Yeah,
00:50:08
Brett
they like, oh, I hadn't even thought of that before.
00:50:10
Brett
There's so many ideas that you see and you're like, some person came up with it. Like, i didn't think it was that big of a deal. And then but but it like changes someone's life. that That kind of thing is pretty cool.
00:50:17
Alexis
yeah.
00:50:17
Plant People
Yeah, it is very, very cool.
00:50:17
Alexis
yeah Well, yes. So if we've convinced you to come to the Mechanical Weed Field Day on September 23rd, 2025, click down below in the show notes. If you just Google Mechanical Weed Control Field Day, University Kentucky, it'll be the first thing to pop up. I just checked.
00:50:38
Alexis
ah So you can go ahead and click in there and register for some good food, some good community, some good learning time. um And if you have questions about that, you can ah email us at hortculturepodcasts at gmail.com. Again, that's in the show notes, or you can reach out individually. ah My contact info ah is on that registration page. If you've got questions, but a lot of good info on there, if you want to see like who's coming, what kind of things you're going to see, what the agenda is. It's a full day of really cool stuff ah for anybody and at any scale and specialty crop world.
00:51:12
Alexis
And with that, I will say thank you for joining us today. And we hope that you will join us again next time. You know, well, go grow something cool. See you later.