WEED-ELIMINATING ROBOTS

By creating WeedBot, Kansas farmer Clint Brauer wants to help other farmers reduce and eventually eliminate herbicide use.

-  Laurie Bedord

Clint Brauer had a problem. Marestail and pigweed were wreaking havoc on his soybean fields. The third generation farmer employs organic and regenerative practices on his Kansas farm and realized there was no way to stay ahead of weeds on broadacre crops without relying on chemicals.

"My goal has always been to get chemicals out of farming," Brauer says. "I also knew I couldn't simply say I wanted to get rid of chemicals without defining how I could achieve that."

Then he had a crazy thought: What would happen if he cut the weeds using a mower? "It seemed like a stupid idea that would never work," Brauer says. "So, I reached out to a friend as well as our crop consultant at the time. Frankly, neither knew what would happen." Rather than discard his idea, Brauer decided to test the concept on his fields. For two summers, he used knives and rotary mowers on weeds, cutting at different heights.