To improve weed management at the smallholder level, a plethora of animal-drawn weeding equipment is now available, with very little technical information available to the farmer on their performance. This paper presents the draught characteristics ofa range of weeders, commonly used in southern Africa. Comparable results were obtained in terms of weeding efficiency for the ox-drawn cultivators, but the light three-tined cultivator had a lower work rate and was more difficult to control on heavier soils than the traditional five-tined cultivators. In sandy soils the ducks foot tines performed better than the reversible tines in terms of yield responses, and vice versa for the heavier clay loam soils. The single animal-drawn tool-bar had the secondlowest weeding efficiency and required the most supplemental hand weeding. In terms of yield responses and returns to hours spent weeding, post-emergent ridge weeding outperformed all of the other weeding treatments. The results help explain the reasonswhy many farmers are unwilling to use the traditional five-tine weeders currently available.
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