The $40+ billion herbicide industry is facing huge challenges from herbicide-resistant weeds and tightening regulation due to safety concerns.
RootWave’s solution is to kill weeds with high-frequency electricity delivered via devices fitted to tractors.
The patented technology can achieve up to 99% kill rates in a single pass, it reports.
RootWave’s electric weeding technology is designed to be integrated into other machinery. It has entered partnerships – most notably with mechanical weeding company Garford Farm Machinery – to co-develop new weeding products that combine RootWave’s electrical weeding system with Garford’s precision-guided toolbar platforms.
This integration enables the technology to be used with advanced mechanical weed control systems for a range of farming systems and crop varieties, from tree, bush and vine crops, to row crops including vegetables, broad-acre, and cereals.
RootWave has commercial sales in the UK and has also secured international manufacturing and distribution agreements. The company is actively conducting trials with several other agrimachinery manufacturers to expand distribution across Europe, with plans to enter the US market thereafter.
Targeting distribution partners
Its growth plans have been boosted thanks to $15 million series B fundraise.
“Decades of chemical herbicides overuse have made resistant weeds one of agriculture’s toughest challenges. We chose to back RootWave because it offers farmers an affordable, effective, and safe alternative to chemical herbicides,” shared Darren Leong, principal at Clay Capital, a specialist food and agriculture venture fund, which led the round. The funding includes $3 million in debt facilities provided by Innovate UK as part of the UK’s Future Economy initiative.
“We have phenomenal independent data across apples, grapes, maize and sugar beat across multiple seasons,” RootWave CEO Andrew Diprose told AgTechNavigator. “This covers our initial target markets – permanent-tree-crops and row-crops. In these trials, we covered a very wide range of weed species.”
A cost-effective alternative to chemical herbicides?
RootWave’s technology is positioned as a cost-effective alternative to chemical herbicides. Though the equipment can be higher than for traditional herbicide sprayers, the overall running and operational costs are significantly lower, making the total cost comparable or even more affordable in the long term, Diprose insisted.
“In the vine and orchard market, the upfront costs are higher than a sprayer. However, the ongoing running costs are significantly less as there is no need for the expensive chemical consumable, and the fuel and labour costs are comparable to a sprayer.”
Rather than cost, the main barrier to widespread adoption and growth is finding more distribution partners, he said.
Could weeds develop resistance to electrical weed control?
He also assures that weeds will not develop resistance to electrical weed control as they have to herbicides. “This is not a biological process but a physical process, it is extremely unlikely given that natural hasn’t developed similar resistances to-date. We always have the option of increasing voltage to overcome any increased resistance.”
The tech is also safe for operators, bystanders, and non-target organisms, he told us. “We use patented high-frequency AC which is orders of magnitude safer than direct current or low-frequency AC used by the rest of the industry. Essentially, DC or low-frequency AC is lethal. High-frequency AC is not.
“We have many other safety features built in as well to the design of the machine as well.” he added. “We have commissioned several independent assessments of safety to non-target organisms who concluded there is no effect to soil and the life within soil – macro-fauna, nematodes, bacteria and fungi.”
