Several of us are part of a multi-state project on electrical weed control in organic blueberry and orchard crops. Tong Zhen is the lead grad student researcher on the UC Davis part of the project and we are working closely with our counterparts at Oregon State University (Marcelo Moretti and team) and Cornell University (Lynn Sosnoskie and team).
Tong wrote about our "first impressions" of the Zasso electrical weed control unit in 2022 and we included a demo of the equipment last year at the 2023 UC Weed Day. Tong's projects are just getting rolling for 2024 in blueberry, almond, and a new grower-led project with winegrape (more to come on those projects!).
Today, Luisa Baccin, the Oregon State University grad student on the project, just posted a nice YouTube video of her electrical weed control research in organic blueberry in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. It's a nice walk-through of the research and has some good footage of the equipment in action. Here's the link to Marcelo and Luisa's video if you're interested: https://youtu.be/a_HHKVHeMjw?si=IKifjYX9M_ECTKrz
This research is funded by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture - Organic Research and Extension Initiative.