Design of Manual Flame Weeder

Weed is one of the important factors in productivity loss in agricultural. It is a major problem in both conventional and organic production systems. The presence of weeds in the crop shared all the important nutrients that were required for the growth of the crop. Weed reduces crop production by 31.5% overall, with 36.5% in kharif and 22.7% in rabi. Weed management has become a highly labor-intensive activity, which is the reason for decreased yields and high costs. Moreover, the lack of skilled labor and weed-resistant herbicides severely impact the agriculture sector and food production, hence increasing the need for automation in agriculture. Flame weeding is an alternative method of weed control. Essentially, it is a supplement to other physical and mechanical processes used in organic production. Weed control costs have a large share of the total cost of crop production. This study aimed to investigate hand weed hoeing’s cost-effectiveness, accompanied by inter-row cultivation and flame weeding applied in organic maize production using two different machines to determine the economically best solution. For this purpose, the prototype flame weeder and commercial flame-weeding machinery were used. Key Word: Flaming, Flame Weeding, Butane, Weed, Crop, Heat