During May 27th – 29th a workshop was held in Wageningen, Netherlands where attendees from numerous countries across Europe, Asia and the USA participates. There where both senior researchers and early career scientists represented.
Event overview
This workshop consisted of presentations, posters, discussion groups and demonstration events focused around physical and cultural weed control. The four key themes that presentations were fitted into were cover crops, perennial weed control, integrated weed management, and seeding and inter row weeding.
During the workshop a poster presentation and discussions focused around the development of Weed National Action Plans as part of the Oper8 project.
Key survey results and the development of weed ‘National Action Plans’ were presented
On the first day, there was also a poster session where participants were encouraged to visit and engage in discussions around the displayed posters. Katy Hebditch from ADAS presented an Oper8 poster, which focused on key survey results and the development of weed ‘National Action Plans’. Given the meeting’s strong emphasis on new research, this poster offered a refreshing perspective by instead concentrating on the dissemination and communication of existing research to key stakeholders in EU farming.
Indeed, a major theme that emerged from discussion groups on the first day was the disconnect between research and on-farm application, a challenge that the Oper8 project aims to address. This project aim was highlighted during these discussions, and participants were encouraged to examine the key barriers and needs highlighted from the Oper8 surveys that were displayed on the poster. Interestingly, most participants admitted they had not heard of the Oper8 project, despite the workshop’s emphasis on non-chemical control methods so this provided a great opportunity for outreach and potential collaborations with experts in alternative weed control solutions.
Field trip to two farms
The second day consisted of a field trip to both the Vredepeel Wageningen Experimental Farm, where weed researchers are conducting a range of trials into alternative weed control, and to a farm in the local area who are beginning to use robotics in their weed management programme.
Demonstration of a long-term Integrated weed management trial being conducted at Vredepeel, comparing conventional approaches to reduced-herbicide IWM approaches across the crop rotation.
Explanation/demonstration of a robotic weeder by Abemec Smart Farming
Explanation/demonstration of a FarmDroid robotic weeder by a light-weight autonomous sowing and hoeing robot. This is being used by a local farmer here in sugar-beet.
