Le 16/06/2026
Weeding Robots and Electric Weed Control Solutions for Vegetable Growers
VegMech webinar provides an overview of non-chemical weed control technologies
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For many growers, weed control is becoming harder to manage using traditional methods alone. Growers are facing labour shortages, restrictions on herbicide use due to resistance and regulatory pressure, and increasing chemical input costs. In response, non-chemical weed control is emerging as a cost-effective and sustainable alternative to herbicides and labour intensive manual weeding.
Recent advances in AgTech are enabling machines to not only detect and identify weeds using sensors and artificial intelligence, but also apply highly targeted, precise weed control. The effectiveness and practicality of these systems can vary depending on crop type, weed pressure and operating conditions, requiring careful consideration before adoption.
Growers seeking to reduce chemical inputs and alleviate labour constraints currently have three primary alternatives to traditional weed control:
- Mechanical weeding
- Laser weeding
- Electric weeding
A recent VegMech program webinar brought together representatives from five companies to showcase their non-chemical weeding solutions and discuss their application to Australian production systems. Watch the webinar in its entirety or scroll down for a summary.
Autonomous Mechanical Weeding
Mechanical weeding is one of the more established non-chemical approaches, with several companies now deploying fully autonomous systems that combine machine vision with in-row precision tools. Two examples presented in the webinar—Odd.Bot and Farming Revolution—demonstrated how these systems are being used to reduce labour while maintaining weed control accuracy. Martijn Lukaart, founder and CEO of Odd.Bot, and Maurice Gohlke, Farming Revolution co-founder and co-CEO discussed their approaches to autonomous mechanical weeding.
Odd.Bot
Odd.Bot’s Maverick robot is fully autonomous and can remove weeds with 2 mm accuracy. Its AI technology detects weeds, then a mechanical arm extracts the unwanted plants, roots included.
According to Lukaart, each pulling arm can remove up to two weeds per second, allowing a single robot to cover up to 2 hectares a day under suitable conditions and potentially replace up to 10 workers. The unit uses 19 kg swappable batteries, and each battery lasts about eight hours.
“It’s very user-friendly,” Lukaart said. “You set it on the field with the remote control, and then it can find its way, work day and night, and up to 24 hours a day.” Monitoring can be done remotely via an app, allowing the user to monitor currently activity including a live camera view, remotely start and stop the robot, and adjust the robot’s settings.
Lukaart also shared a video testimonial from an organic grower in the Netherlands.
The farmer, Digni van den Dries, said his Odd.Bot Maverick pulled two million weeds in two weeks. “I would’ve needed twelve people for that; and you just can’t find them anymore. This robot has saved me labour and brought me peace of mind. It runs smoothly. It requires little attention. It just works.”
There are 44 Odd.Bot Mavericks currently in use on a variety of farms including carrots, onions, chicory, red beet and parsnips, although there is ongoing development to allow future compatibility with additional crops. The machine has been used across multiple soil types, including heavier clay soils. As with most forms of weed control, weed size is important, with the machine capable of identifying weeds up to 7 centimeters. Weed species can also limit the capabilities initially, with unfamiliar weeds requiring training of the AI to identify, which takes approximately one season.
Odd.Bot’s approach delivers highly targeted weed removal with minimal crop disturbance, making it well suited to structured row crops, provided crop configuration and weed timing are appropriate.
Farming Revolution
Farming Revolution's Farming GT robot is also fully-autonomous and uses AI-based plant detection to differentiate weeds from crops (view clip). Instead of mechanical arms, the robot uses knives to remove weeds. The knives operate at a configurable depth beneath the soil and allow precision targeting of weeds, including the effective removal of larger weeds that can be harder to kill with alternative weed control technologies.
A key point of differentiation is its ability to integrate multiple weed control strategies. “We have an add-on so you can apply insecticides or herbicides,” said Maurice Gohlke, Farming Revolution co-founder and co-CEO. “If you have resistant weeds, you remove them with a mechanical solution, but you also can provide an initial herbicide protection to keep the weeds in control. Because if the weeds are very close to the crop plant, you will not be able to reach it mechanically.” The machine implements safety zones around the crop, which typically range from 2.5cm at slower speeds up to 6cm.
Farming Revolution currently has 50 Farming GT robots operating in 9 European countries and plans to expand to Australia and the U.S. The company says it has the largest plant image database in the world and can weed more than 100 crop varieties.
One Farming GT robot can weed 5-10 hectares per day depending on the application, speed and weed pressure. The machine can weed between:
- 10 hectares in 24 hours (commercial farms)
- and 5-6 hectares in 24 hours (organic farms)
The robot runs on electric batteries, but it also has a diesel generator. Gohlke explained:
“We tried battery swapping, but it was a hassle. You can also bring the robot back and charge it, but I don't think any of our customers do this. The machine doesn't use a lot of power, and it's just easier to refill with diesel. Usually, customers refill every two days with around 30 liters of diesel. Consumption is really low, so the machine can operate continuously when the conditions are good.”
Growers attending the webinar asked how the machine performed in different soil types, especially clay and sandy soils. Gohlke said sandy soil may wear down the knives faster, resulting in the need for more frequent knife replacement, but heavy soil was not an issue for the Farming GT.
“It's a 4-wheel drive machine, so it’s quite good when the soils are very heavy. It also works well on hills and slopes,” Gohlke said. “It’s also very light compared to normal cultivators. If the soil is wet, our machine can go into the field when heavier machines cannot. The 3-metre machine weighs only two tonnes.”
Gohlke also said the machine is very easy to use, even for people who are not accustomed to new technology. “We have hundreds of users, and some of them are over 70. Anyone who can use WhatsApp usually manages to use the machine.”
The Farming GT allows a flexible approach to autonomous weeding, combining mechanical and optional chemical control. This provides greater field capacity and versatility but may find it difficult to weed between densely spaced crops.
>>> Watch Farming Revolution’s segment
PixelFarming Robotics: Laser Weeding
Laser weeders hold significant potential for vegetable production systems by offering a precise, non-chemical alternative for weed control. Using advanced sensors and artificial intelligence, these devices can identify and target weeds with pinpoint accuracy, reducing the need for herbicides and soil disturbance and minimising damage to crops and soil health. This approach supports more sustainable farming practices by decreasing reliance on manual labour, lowering production costs, and mitigating environmental impacts associated with traditional weed management methods.
In the webinar, Pixelfarming Robotics presented their laser weeding machine, Robot One. It combines AI to identify weeds and lasers to eliminate them at the growing point, without physically disturbing the soil as is typical of mechanical weeders. According to Arend Koekkoek, CEO of PixelFarming Robotics, each laser can burn away 10,000 weeds per hour. Machines can be configured with varying numbers of lasers—up to 20 lasers on smaller units and up to 80 lasers on larger machines. This allows scaling with farm size and application requirements.
During the webinar, Koekkoek showed a short video of how Robot One identifies and eliminates weeds. Growers can start using the machine in about one hour; however, Koekkoek noted it may take a full season for the robot’s AI to learn every crop variation.
The Robot One has also been designed for flexibility, allowing easy reconfiguration for different bed sizes. “You can run it in a wide mode or in a small mode. If you transfer the machine to another field with a different configuration, you don't have to rebuild anything. It's just a software setting,” Koekkoek explained.
The machine operates autonomously and primarily runs on solar and battery power. Operating time can be extended by swapping the (24 kg) batteries or switching to diesel. This hybrid approach can maintain reliability while significantly reducing fuel use. According to Koekkoek, a farming operation in Denmark reduced its diesel use from 1000 litres per day to 100 litres of diesel per day after switching to RobotOne.
Koekkoek said the machine is popular with baby leaf producers and other dense crops that are difficult to manage with chemicals. So far, Robot One has been tested with 50 different field crops including: carrots, onions, leeks and fine herbs such as parsley and coriander.
Demand from conventional growers is higher than the company anticipated. “We thought it was all going to be organic farmers, but it’s also working in conventional farming,” Koekkoek said.
Robot Ones were field-tested in Spain and are currently operating in Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany. Rollout is coming soon to Australia.
Laser weeding offers a highly precise, low-disturbance solution for dense and high-value crops, but its effectiveness and scalability remain closely tied to crop type, weed stage and operating conditions.
>>> Watch PixelFarming Robotics’ segment
Electric Weed Control Robots
Electric weeding systems offer another non-chemical alternative by using electrical energy to kill weeds, rather than removing or burning them. These systems typically kill weeds by shooting an electric current through the plant, damaging internal tissues and potentially killing the root system. Two different approaches to electric weeding were presented in the webinar: a contact-based system from Azeneo and a systemic electrical solution developed by Garford Farm Machinery/Rootwave.
Azaneo
Australian-based company Azaneo uses pads to apply targeted electrical pulses to kill weeds. The pads can be mounted onto different platforms and towed behind a tractor.
Liam Hescock, co-founder and CEO of Azaneo explained:
“Our system is super simple. Electric fields from the pads kill weeds without actually increasing the temperature of the plant. “It’s a super fast, non-thermal way to kill weeds. You can do blanket weed control or you can run through crops, narrow ones or wider ones, at different spacings.”
Hescock said the equipment has been used to combat 100 different weed species at Azaneo’s test farm in New South Wales. “We've got pretty good efficacy on key species of grasses and broadleaf weeds, about 90%. If the grass gets bigger, the results are 70 to 80%.” As with other weed control technology, timing is therefore critical to maximise effectiveness.
One advantage of this system is its operational simplicity compared to fully autonomous platforms. However, because it is a contact-based approach, coverage and consistency depend on good physical contact with the target weeds and relatively uniform field conditions.
Azeneo currently has a machine working a conventional celery and leek farm in Victoria, Australia and plans to expand commercial trials by leasing additional units to growers in Victoria and Queensland. The company is also working on a weed density detection system that will alert the operator to slow down when there are more weeds or increase speed when there are fewer weeds.
Azaneo’s approach provides a relatively simple entry point into non-chemical weed control, particularly for growers looking to retrofit existing machinery rather than adopt fully autonomous systems.
Garford Farm Machinery/Rootwave
Garford Farm Machinery, a UK-based company that specialises in mechanical hoeing machines, partnered with Rootwave in 2023 to integrate electric weed control with its existing equipment.
“It’s systemic weed control that uses physics rather than chemistry. It’s not just killing the plant material above the surface, it’s killing the roots as well,” said Jonathan Henry, Managing Director at Garford Farm Machinery. This means the machine is also capable of killing large weeds, though this takes more time and energy to do so.
“The system uses a high-frequency AC, high-voltage current with two electrodes per module. One electrode is the treatment and one is the return and the soil is the return conductor. So when we contact the plant with the electrode, the energy passes through the plant and the root.”
Henry shared a diagram of a PTO-driven generator with a Rootwave attached [MT1] to the rear of the machine. The unit has flexible toolbars that can be quickly adjusted for different crops and configurations from flat field to raised beds. Additionally, each weed eradication module can be independently adjusted for higher or lower weed pressure. For example, when weeds are heavier on one side of a row versus another.
According to Henry, efficacy levels are near 90%. He shared before and after images of a heavily-infested carrot field and noted the electrically-treated field produced a clean harvest despite the severe infestation.
Rootwave technology is currently in use throughout Europe. The systemic approach taken by Rootwave offers the potential for more consistent control of larger or harder-to-kill weeds, particularly where root destruction is important.
Free AgTech Webinars for Australian Growers
VegMech is a 3-year initiative funded by the HORT Innovation vegetable levy and led by the Queensland Department of Primary Industries in partnership with Farm Concepts and GOFAR. According to the 2025 Vegetable Industry Sentiment Report , 60% of Australian growers reported workforce shortages and 47% of growers surveyed said investment in agtech and mechanisation would benefit their businesses.
The VegMech program aims to accelerate the adoption of advanced field technologies by Australian growers. Additional webinars are scheduled for the remainder of 2026 to help growers and manufacturers connect and share information.
Save the Dates:
Entering the Australian Veg Market: Opportunities for AgTech Companies and Dealers
- Date: 20 August 2026 at 5:00 PM (Australia/Brisbane time)
- Description: This session explores the high-potential Australian vegetable market for agricultural robotics. It covers industry challenges, the role of distribution partners, and key success factors for technology adoption and deployment based on real-world feedback.
Transforming Vegetable Planting: Automated Transplanters – Grower & Manufacturer Perspectives
- Date: 24 September 2026 at 5:00 PM (Australia/Brisbane time)
- Description: Addressing ongoing workforce shortages, this webinar showcases automated transplanting machinery. Manufacturers will present available solutions, and growers will provide first-hand feedback regarding performance, operational benefits, and return on investment.
Bringing Autonomy to Your Farm: Grower Experiences with Autonomous Equipment
- Date: 26 November 2026 at 5:00 PM (Australia/Brisbane time)
- Description: This webinar highlights grower experiences with integrating autonomous machinery, ranging from retrofitted conventional tractors to fully autonomous platforms. The session covers readiness assessments, integration challenges, and strategies to improve efficiency and profitability.
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