WESTERN GROWERS CASE STUDY
Roberts says this yield increase comes in the form of recoverable product. Historically, some fields would have such a high amount of weeds, they would skip harvest and just disc the field, because it wasn’t worth putting a hand crew in to weed. The LaserWeeder has also helped yields because it causes less crop damage than hand-weeding. Now hand crews only go in the fields closer to harvest for final cleanup and food safety inspections, which is less invasive and a much faster process. In addition to improving yields, Triangle Farms has seen a reduction in their weed seedbank, which was a big reason they opted for the LaserWeeder. Hand-weeding propagating weeds like purslane would not completely eliminate the weed, because of its ability to reroot. But the high-powered carbon dioxide lasers are able to completely destroy the weed seed and weed base. “It was important for us to not only weed at a relatively low cost, but that we would improve our weed-to-plant ratio over time by reducing the weed seed count in the soil,” Roberts says.
doing their food safety inspection pass, which saved them $251.27 per acre. Josh Roberts, former president of Triangle Farms, says this is because it only takes 18-24 days to harvest arugula, so the crop was able to outgrow any remaining weeds after one pass with the LaserWeeder. • Weeding on the organic romaine lettuce costs were $88.73 more per acre with the LaserWeeder than hand-weeding alone, but Roberts says this was due to thinning the romaine lettuce (see Table 7). The value of doing both thinning and weeding at the same time is something that is still being explored. Triangle Farms found that a Stout Smart Cultivator, which was purchased in 2019, as well as Farmwise’s smart cultivating as a service, were more cost effective in removing weeds in their romaine lettuce. 2 • Because they saw significant savings with the other crops, Triangle Farms still reduced their per-acre weeding costs across all four crops by $388.34, resulting in a total annual savings of $430,277.16, a 40% reduction compared to contracted H-2A labor alone. • After the 5-year depreciation schedule, Triangle Farms’ continued operational costs of running the LaserWeeder are predicted to reduce to $232.12 per acre (see Table 8), which will increase Triangle Farms’ per-acre savings to $604.95.
CUSTOMER SERVICE HELPS OVERCOME CHALLENGES
Like Braga Fresh, Triangle Farms also had to make some management changes to incorporate the LaserWeeder. Typically the farm would still be heavily irrigating when they would need to run it, but due to the size and weight of the machine, they needed to be strategic about when they water. Roberts notes this was more of a learning curve than a big challenge to overcome. The only other negative the farm has encountered is the travel speed of the implement. Roberts says in high-density crops it averages 1 acre per hour, while it can reach higher 3-4 acres an hour in other crops. 3
YIELD IMPROVEMENTS & REDUCED SEEDBANK
The LaserWeeder’s ability to eliminate weeds effectively has also allowed Triangle Farms to increase some of their yields, particularly with organic spinach and multi-leaf lettuces — usually around 10-15%, but sometimes as high as 50%.
“ It was important for us to not only weed at a relatively low cost, but that we would improve our weed-to-plant ratio over time by reducing the weed seed count in the soil. ” — Josh Roberts, Triangle Farms, Former President
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