Farmers Are Now Using Tractor Flamethrowers On Their Crops, But Why?
Just imagine driving down the road, minding your own business, when all of a sudden, you spot a tractor out of the corner of your eye. This machine is tending to a rather substantially sized field. This certainly wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary in an area that supports this kind of agriculture. However, if the tractor were towing behind a large attachment that spans wider than a collection of cars and was spitting out fire, it might be something to write home about. To the common passerby, this probably wouldn’t make much sense as to why a field was being tended with fire.
This time, we get to take a unique look inside the process that is getting a little bit creative. The end goal is to make sure crops are as healthy as can be. A bit of research would turn up the idea that fire can be used as weed control. Basically, it’ll help to make sure that the plants grow healthily and aren’t overtaken by other nuisance plants. It’s not something we’d recommend trying at home, though.
SF Gate’s Homeguide tells us that “Fire effectively controls all types of weeds, but is inefficient against large infestations and presents a fire hazard. Improperly using either type of weed control can result in accidental damage to the plants you are trying to protect.”
By following along with the video below, we get to see exactly how weed killing by fire goes. This isn’t necessarily something that’s all that groundbreaking. It’s been in practice for years but it’s certainly something that we can’t help but be mesmerized by.
Why do they do this? Well, at the end of the day, it’s believed to be good practice for tending crops that will end up being edible. By using fire to kill weeds, farmers are able to avoid chemicals going on the food which ends up being a healthier process with no residue left behind. However, someone has to be pretty good at doing this and do it at just the right time. Otherwise, they might burn some of the good plants and waste money in the process.
