Effects of Tertill® Weeding Robot on Weed Abundance and Diversity

Abstract

Robotic weed control may reduce labor requirements, soil disturbance, and amount of herbicide applied relative to non-robotic methods. Tertill® is among the first weeding robots to become commercially available. This solar-powered robot moves in a random walk, avoiding obstacles using capacitive sensors, and cuts weeds with a string trimmer. We tested the effects of Tertill (two hours per week) with and without the string trimmer and hand weeding (from 3 to 5.6 min per week with a stirrup hoe) on weed communities at two field sites in Ithaca, NY. Tertill with trimmer and hand weeding provided similar levels of weed control (visual estimates averaging 2–9% ground cover at the end of the experiment, compared to 14–48% in the unweeded control). Without the string trimmer, Tertill was ineffective. Tertill did not significantly reduce monocot weed density but did reduce dicot weed density. At one site, Tertill reduced species richness and increased evenness based on density. Overall, these results suggest that Tertill can effectively remove newly emerged weed seedlings. Future research should investigate Tertill performance against more established weeds and the long-term effects of Tertill on weed community composition (e.g., possible selection for monocots and other species with low growing points).