A growing number of agricultural machinery makers are focus on developing and producing organic farming equipment to help farmers reduce weed burdens and stimulate crop growth. While toothed herbicides capable of removing unwanted plants between plant rows have long been developed, recent developments include systems that can identify and eliminate weeds within plant rows.
- Tined Weeders for Weed Control
Tined weed harrow being pulled by a tractor. A tine weeder is one of the easiest ways to remove unwanted species from grass and cultivated fields, depending on the crop being grown. Multipurpose tools such as comb rakes consist of thin spring teeth mounted on a contoured curved frame. 
While their primary purpose is to remove weeds, this organic farming equipment also breaks up congested soil, allowing more air to enter the upper portion, allowing water to penetrate when dry, and improving evapotranspiration when wet. Additionally, it breaks up slug eggs to prevent the population from growing. The same tools can be used to prepare the seed before planting. For grass work, a weeder and a simple chain rake keep pastures free of dead weeds and clear the roots of large weeds like docks. The attached tractor needs a relatively high forward speed to achieve the desired effect with both types of implements, but this one can do a good job of aerating as well as destroying weeds and thatch.
- Robocrop for Weed Control
This modern type of organic farming equipment uses a series of cameras that produce images that are analyzed at 30 frames per second. These are able to identify unsuitable weeds - in size and shape - based on the volume of the crop present. The direction of the machine hoe is automatically adjusted according to hydraulic lateral displacements with anti-reverse action. The accuracy of the camera is usually 15 mm, and with the addition of soil jamming discs, the accuracy can exceed 10 mm. 
The company says forward speeds of up to 12 km/h are possible, and higher speeds have been successfully adopted. Special pressure pistons keep the parts in contact with the ground and improve penetration in difficult conditions, while the cut blades ensure they don't 'slip' over close-row weeds and provide leaf clearance to prevent stripping.
- Robocrop InRow Weeder for Weed Control
A further development of Robocrop is the InRow Weeder, which uses the same video image analysis technology to locate individual plants for mechanical weeding only between and within rows, using cam-mounted arms to move between plants when it detects the presence of weeds. Robocrop InRow was developed for transplant crops such as lettuce, cabbage and celery and can also be used in most crops with regular plants and row spacing, where the leaves of one plant are clearly separated from the next plant. The system can achieve forward speeds of up to three plant distances per second and the machine is sized to cover up to 18 rows and 6 meters. Such models include the traditional duck leg A-share, the flat A-share, the L-shaped blade and the specially shaped diagonal blade. 
The special raised bed system cultivator has a series of special shares between the plows on the wheel track and the bed row. Most models have a pressure piston that adds weight to each unit and prevents bounce when working at high speeds. The hoe can be mounted in the front or rear and can be guided by the tractor driver, a second operator in the seat behind the hoe or a high-speed video guidance system.
- Organic Farming Equipment for Spreading Manure
Utilizing the nutrients and fibrous material provided by manure is a key tenet of organic farming, and fertilizer spreader manufacturers are making a concerted effort to improve how machines fully handle the material and spread it evenly. Spreader manufacturer Richard Western, for example, has developed a series of new machines that feature closer-spaced center floor chains to improve material flow to the spreader rotors and a tapered body rotors. These finely divided fibrous fertilizers ensure that they are spread evenly over the field surface, ensuring that the soil organic matter content is improved throughout the soil profile and that no clumps of straw or manure remain. The app's accuracy is further enhanced with ground speed control that can be upgraded to a GPS ground speed system. The spreader is also equipped with loading cells and a fully automatic weighing and recording system, allowing input of track width and desired application rate in t/ha, the spread file can be downloaded via the USB output. 
- Organic Farming Equipment for Dairy Farmers
Organic dairy producers who wish to produce more milk can use them to produce more material by separating it into solid and liquid parts, respectively. Benefits include reduced pulp storage capacity requirements and better material utilization. Companies such as Bauer have introduced more compact, lower-cost waste recovery units, including self-contained portable sludge separation units, including feed and discharge pumps, separators and controls, all housed in galvanized frames.
- Organic Farming Equipment: Grass Meters
Organic pasture farmers who want to maximize grass growth and use organic fertilizers and manure to stimulate it can benefit from a grass reader. These measure grass cover -- the amount of grass available in a given area -- using "elevator boards or, increasingly, ultrasound." The latter type can be mounted on ATVs to cover large areas at speeds of up to 20 km/h (12.5 mph). The read head scans a conical area in front of the vehicle and the measurements returned give a height estimate in millimeters which is then applied to a formula to estimate a coverage of 1,400-3,800 kg/ha. 
Measurement data can be recorded manually or, in more advanced versions, automatically stored in multiple fields. It can then be transferred to the computer via the wireless network provided by the device itself. Premium models feature GPS positioning, map display, automatic field changes and wireless data transfer.