One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. Over and over and over. That’s the dull routine of any researcher or student tasked with counting weed seeds. But just like technology has made many things in life faster and easier, relief may be coming for seed counters as well.
A team of researchers at the University of Arkansas, Auburn University and North Carolina State University set out to see if a piece of technology, called a computerized particle analyzer, can be used to count weed seeds. Their results are promising and show the analyzer accurately counts seeds.
Matthew Bertucci, a scientist at Arkansas, says seed counting is a tiring yet important fact of life in their research.
“Many weed control strategies or studies evaluate the ability of an herbicide to kill weeds and elevate crop yields,” he explains. “However, weeds that have been stunted, but not killed, may still produce viable seed that can contribute to weed populations in later years. Monitoring weed seed production then becomes important to evaluating weed control efforts.”
Read more at American Society of Agronomy
Image: When seeds are hand counted, they are grouped on graph paper so they are easier to total. Hand counting can be a tedious process. (Credit: Matthew Bertucci)