Meet the Weed Seed Destroyer

The Weed Seed Destroyer is attached to the back of a combine, and blue light technology destroys the weed seeds. The technology shows promise in hampering the growth of herbicide-resistant weed seeds such as waterhemp or palmer amaranth.

Can blue light LED technology be a solution to real-time weed control on a farm?

The answer to that may lie in a now-being-tested product developed by Global Neighbor Inc. of Xenia, Ohio, called the Weed Seed Destroyer, that shows promise in hampering the growth of herbicide-resistant weed seeds such as waterhemp or palmer amaranth.

“Weed management is this big growing problem in agriculture,” said Jon Jackson, who’s spearheading the development for Global.  

“We have high confidence in the efficacy of this system.”

It was by chance that Jackson’s company came across the innovative weed solution while working on a project for the U.S. Air Force in 2018. Awarded a Small Business Investment Research (SBIR) grant, Global worked with the defense department to study the effects of energy on defoliating trees and making tumbleweed seeds from the desert nonviable.

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