Mechanical & Physical
Weed Management Tactics

Mechanical and physical weed management tactics include manual and hand labor, tillage, and techniques that directly kill weeds by physical means.

Manual Weed Management Tactics

The oldest tactic of weed control is hand weeding. Closely related to hand weeding is hand hoeing, and a variation of hand hoeing "spudding". A spud is a forked mechanical device to pull weeds up, especially those with taproots.

Tillage Weed Management Tactics

Tillage equipment is pulled by animals or machinery that mechanically kills weeds, or otherwise renders weeds unable to interfere with crop production. Tillage equipment includes:

-plows (moldboard, chisel)
-harrows (disk, spring tooth, spike tooth)
-cultivators (blade, rotary hoe, shovels, disks, springs, sweeps)
-weeders (rod, pencil point, finger)
-chaining

Tillage can kill or eliminate weed interference in several ways, these include:

-burial of seed so it is too deep to successfully germinate
-stimulate weed seed to germinate before or after cropping; this tactic can include exhaustion of seed in the soil bank and exhaustion of root reserves in perennial underground parts
-desiccation of weeds, seedlings, seed or vegetative propagules
-physical destruction of weeds
-interference with the root system, especially with shallow cultivation
-mowing and cutting, chopping, clipping such that the taller plants are killed

Rotary hoeing and interrow cultivation often complement herbicide usage by reducing inconsistencies in herbicide performance (environmental and weed biodiversity causes). It can also slow population shifts toward weed species tolerant of current management programs.

Physical Weed Management Tactics

High Temperature Tactics:

-fire and burning
-flaming (specialized equipment)
-heating
-solarization (high heat generated under inorganic mulch

Grinding (especially as weed seed screenings)

Water Management tactics:

-flooding
-dredging
-draining

Smothering with non-living materials: plastic mulches

Sound: ultrahigh frequency fields (UHF) produce thermal effects (specialized equipment)

©jdekker-1999