My View: Automated weed control in organic cropping systems

In 2005, for the first time, all 50 states in the United States had some certified organic farmland (USDA 2007). Producers in the United States dedicated over 1.62 million hectares of farmland to organic production systems in 2005. The increase in the number of hectares of crops being grown organically has brought with it a growing need for more labor and nonconventional inputs for weed control. Currently, weed control is ranked as the number one production cost by organic and many conventional growers. Over the past 10 yr, development of machine-guided technologies for site-specific (precision) weed control has advanced rapidly, but emphasis in the weed science societies (e.g., WSSA, WSWS) has lagged behind, not to mention being absent in the area of precision weed control in organic systems