Desenvolvimento de protótipo para processo de capina ecológico

Abstract

There is a variety of weeding methods, which can be separated into chemical, thermal and manual. Each method has advantages and disadvantages. Manual methods are usually slower, which makes them unsuitable when it is required to cover large areas. Thermal methods, such as flaming, are rather expensive because they require a large amount of energy to kill the weeds. Chemical methods are considered quick and rather cheap, but they cause environmental issues and are usually harmful to humans. Therefore, there is no perfect weeding method, leaving room for new approaches and technologies to be developed. The following paper presents a study regarding the combat of weeds utilizing the sprinkling of heated vegetable oil. For this function, two concepts are developed and tested throughout the study. With the best concept, tests with plants show the necessary parameters for the function of this weeding method. The results obtained with the tests indicated that the sprinkling of heated vegetable oil succeeds in killing the weeds for some of the tested operational conditions and the type of evaluated vegetation. However, the mortality only occurred with the use of high temperature (150ºC) and high volume of the sprayed oil (6,1l/m2). In this way, this method did not seem to be superior in any aspect when compared to the literature of other methods that currently exist.