Field applications of automated weed control: Asia

Abstract

Weed control is very important in agriculture in Asian countries. Mechanical systems are used for many agricultural tasks such as cultivating, seeding, fertilizing, and harvesting, but weeding is not mechanized enough. There is a rising demand for nonchemical or low-chemical agriculture from the viewpoint of consumer/farmer safety and environmental preservation. At present, in Japan herbicides are used mainly for weed control. Nonchemical weeding with manual operations is also done but on a small scale because labor costs are very high. For nonchemical manual weeding, farmers are forced to work long, strenuous hours. The cost of manual labor in most Asian countries is rising along with rapid economic growth. In this chapter, the detection and removal of weeds autonomously using an advanced system developed in Japan will be discussed. The goal is a robotic weed control system that can maintain efficient and effective weed control and provide economic profits to the farmer in both conventional and organic systems.