Kirkland UK a specialist supplier of equipment to the UK fruit industry is the new official distributor for RootWave electrical weed control products in the UK. The new partnership will see Kirkland UK distribute RootWave’s tractor-powered eWeeding machines for use in orchards, vineyards and bush fruit.

The RootWave system uses electricity to boil weeds and their roots. This makes electrical weeding extremely effective and, because it is non-chemical and does not disturb the soil, it is compatible with conventional, organic and regenerative farming systems.

RootWave’s eWeeding technology is a cost-effective and high-performance solution, creating financial and environmental benefits, while supporting better quality fruit crop production.

RootWave’s Head of Sales & Marketing Tom Archer said, “we are delighted to partner with Kirkland UK to provide fruit growers a formidable weed control solution. Kirkland UK is a vastly experienced and well respected supplier to the UK fruit growing sector and this partnership will ensure growers receive a top class product and excellent aftersales service.”

Kirkland UK Managing Director, Scott Worsley said, “RootWave delivers a highly targeted, electric-based weed control solution that integrates seamlessly into orchard and vineyard systems. We’re proud to supply this technology to UK growers who need effective, non-chemical options that protect tree and vine roots, and meet the increasing demand for organic and sustainable practices.”

(Left to right) Tom Archer (RootWave), Scott Worsley and Richard Pendry (Kirkland UK).

The round was led by Clay Capital, a specialist food and agriculture venture fund, with participation from Agri Investment Fund – the investment arm of the Belgian collective Boerenbond Group – as well as vineyard-focused Xinomavro Ventures, Naruhisa Nakagawa, founder and CIO of Caygan Capital, Jorge Heraud, former CEO and Co-founder of Blue River Technology (acquired by John Deere), and returning investors V-Bio Ventures, Rabo Ventures and PYMWYMIC. The round includes $3 million in debt facilities provided by Innovate UK as part of the UK’s Future Economy initiative.

At a time when agrifoodtech investment has fallen to its lowest levels in five years, RootWave’s success underscores the urgent demand for sustainable agriculture solutions.

The $40+ billion herbicide industry is facing unprecedented challenges from herbicide-resistant weeds and tightening regulation due to safety concerns. While alternative solutions such as mechanical, laser, and thermal weeding have emerged, RootWave stands out for its unmatched combination of efficacy, cost competitiveness, and safety.  Its market leading technology eliminates weeds without damaging soils or crops, with field performance rivalling that of chemical herbicides.

RootWave manufactures tractor-mounted implements using its patented high-frequency electricity that delivers exceptional performance, achieving up to 99% kill rates in a single pass during independent field trials. Compatible with conventional, regenerative and organic farming systems, the technology helps farmers protect yields and profits while safeguarding human health and the environment.

RootWave has commercial sales in the UK and has also secured international manufacturing and distribution agreements, including a partnership with leading mechanical weeding company, Garford Farm Machinery. The company is actively conducting trials with several other agrimachinery manufacturers to expand distribution across Europe, with plans to enter the US market thereafter.  RootWave’s electrical weeding technology is suitable for a wide range of crops from tree, bush and vine crops, to row crops including vegetables, broad-acre, and cereals.

With this new funding, RootWave is set to accelerate both regional and international rollout, drive forward its mission to replace chemical herbicides use worldwide, and become the new standard for sustainable weed control.

Andrew Diprose, CEO of RootWave, commented: “This fundraising allows RootWave to accelerate its growth.  We are grateful for the support from our customers, partners, and employees, and look forward to working with the new investors. Together, we will grow RootWave to become the dominant global player in weed control.’

“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. “Having known Andrew and the team for over seven years, we have seen their technology evolve from concept to commercial launch, partnering with some of the world’s leading agriculture machinery companies. RootWave is now well-positioned to become the solution of choice for farmers seeking a safer and more effective option”.

Patrik Haesen, CEO of Agri Investment Fund, comments: “Weed control being an increasing challenge for farmers, we are excited to support RootWave bringing its technology to market. Providing a non-chemical and sustainable solution that destroys weeds down to the roots is a true gamechanger for agriculture.”

The RootWave system uses electricity to boil weeds and their roots. This makes electrical weeding highly effective and, because it is non-chemical and does not disturb the soil, it is compatible with both organic and regenerative farming systems. RootWave’s patented high-frequency alternating-current is orders of magnitude safer than direct-current, typically used in electrical weed control.

With over 20 years of hoeing experience, and having brought many innovations to market, from the Robocrop Vision Guidance System to the compact hydraulic side shift mechanism, Garford is recognised as the industry leader in precision mechanical weed control. The Robocrop Guidance System allows for accurate and efficient hoeing for both in row and inter-row weed management and prevention control. The system uses video cameras and image analysis computers to locate crop position and then guides the hoes quickly and accurately.

The new eWeeding technology is set to provide a cost-effective and high-performance solution, creating financial and environmental benefits, while supporting better quality crops that are not competing against weeds. Garford has calculated that by using the eWeeding technology, across a variety of different systems, estimated costs would come in between £55 to £120 per hectare, significantly lower than chemical herbicide costs.

RootWave CEO Andrew Diprose said, “Combining forces with Garford allows us to create a formidable solution for the industry, combining best-in-class power electronics, imaging and artificial intelligence to create an unrivalled weed control solution for vegetables, cereals and row-crops.

“It will alleviate the worries of farmers who are faced with an uncertain future where they don’t know if herbicides will be available, or will even be effective due to safety and resistance issues.”

Garford Managing Director Jonathan Henry said, “We are incredibly excited to pair Garford’s vast experience in precision guided hoes, with RootWave’s world leading expertise in power electronics.

“With the increasingly stringent controls over the use of chemical weed management, alongside resistance issues, we can support UK and global agriculture as it embraces its environmental responsibilities.

“Combining our technologically advanced precision guided weed control solutions, with the benefits of RootWave’s high frequency alternating current electrical weeding technology, we can create commercially viable and effective solutions to growers, as a key part of a sustainable, integrated weed management system.”

The pioneering tractor-powered machine that delivers full control of weeds using electricity was one of the top scoring items for productivity and environmental benefit on the list. As a result, growers can claim the maximum grant allowance of £50,000 – more than half the machine’s list price.

CEO Andrew Diprose says the grant means that growers with 25 hectares of orchards and vineyards could save money versus their existing sprayer and herbicide programme.

“The running costs for a RootWave eWeeder are tiny in comparison to herbicides. Before this grant was announced we knew medium and large growers could save money by switching to eWeeding, now smaller growers can too.”

Farming Minister Mark Spencer visited RootWave in February to see the Warwickshire based company’s eWeeder in action.

The Defra Minister was impressed, commenting: “Keeping control of weeds is a crucial task all farmers face. RootWave is one of the most innovative companies in the country and Defra has supported the development of their innovative and eco-friendly electric weeder.”

Growers may also be able to access further funding, an annual payment of £101 per hectare of land where eWeeding is used rather than herbicides, under the Combined Environment Land Management Offer. eWeeding is the only non-chemical solution that kills both weeds and their roots without disturbing the soil.

Andrew Diprose said: “eWeeding is the only weed control option that can outcompete herbicides on efficacy and cost. Growers can also access all the benefits of chemical-free weed control and for those in environmentally sensitive areas this can include further grant funding from other organisations such as water boards.”

Growers can find guidance for claiming the Defra grant here.

More information about the eWeeder for Fruit

The money and time spent by governments on committees and stewardship schemes would be better used on helping the industry transition to viable alternatives like electrical weed control. It is time for the industry to start looking forward, not backwards.

It is difficult to find out exactly how much money, time and resources are spent on debating, regulating, monitoring and reviewing chemical use. Certainly, civil servants and politicians spend many hours at briefings, meetings and committees discussing the future of chemical products. Often, as was the case with glyphosate last month, without reaching a conclusion.

This is driven by the fact that chemical herbicides are by their nature, toxic – that’s how they work. Farmer’s use them because when the post-war population boom demanded a rapid increase in food production, chemicals provided a cheap means of meeting market needs.

Now, regulatory costs, legal costs and the technological costs associated with chasing ‘safer’ chemistry means the days of free-flowing cheap chemical herbicides are, rightfully, behind us.

Meanwhile, Government bodies spend millions of pounds on research programmes, some of which test the efficacy of one chemical as a potential replacement for another. A wasteful act of kicking the can down the road, as new chemical products carry the same long-term risks: safety, resistance, regulation.

To make matters worse for farmers many such studies are funded via levies, so in affect it is farmers paying to test chemical products that will later be sold to them at a premium.

Whatever the total cost of these activities, isn’t it time someone stopped and thought… are we wasting a whole heap of cash flogging, if not a dead horse, then an increasingly old and sick one?

Herbicides are hugely damaging. They hide behind a benign looking liquid in a bottle that is relatively easy to spray, but the manufacturing process to get there is an industrial, environmentally damaging and carbon intensive process. The toxicity of the residues is not immediately clear, and it can require significant effort to link health and environment issues to the use of herbicides.

Time to start rowing with the wind

It is clear which way the wind is blowing, the more we understand about chemicals, the less disposed we are to want to use them to produce our food.

Are we ready to ban them all together? Of course not. Can we do more to reduce our reliance on them and improve safety? Well, yes.

Why not take some of the time, money and resource that we spend on regulation and start spending it on innovation? Wouldn’t we be better using the public’s tax money, and farmer’s levy funds on quickening our arrival at the future, rather than prolonging the past?

What makes innovation and scaling alternatives difficult is that herbicides have historically been considered to be cheap. But there has been a hidden cost to our health and the environment that has not been amortised yet and will be left for later generations to pay.

As Einstein once said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. The era of controlling weeds with chemistry is nearing its end. We can replace chemistry with physics in many cases. Electrical weed control is the most effective example of that.

The new RootWave eWeeder for fruit is effective, affordable and safe. It is on the market now; we know how well it works and we know that lots of farmers are very keen to use it within their orchards and vineyards.

It would be wrong to let the industry control the upcoming narrative that herbicides are the only competitive regenerative weed control technology, it is simply not true. eWeeding is lower cost, is an order of magnitude more energy efficient, and has no residues to risk our soils, biodiversity, and health.

Supporting the rollout of eWeeding into British and European horticulture would do far more to restrict the use of harmful chemicals in the sector, than bureaucratic processes and regulation will do – because it works, its affordable and farmers can reap additional benefits like wider treatment windows. Chemical herbicides such as glyphosate won’t be used, because they won’t be wanted.

In 1891, Jacques-Arsene d’Arsonval found that using high frequency alternating electric current significantly reduced the likelihood of serious injury from electric shock.

The study on RootWave’s technology built on this and undertook extensive literature searches, modelling, and analysis to assess the severity of injuries a person could sustain from electric current. The conclusions are consistent with d’Arsonval, and show that ‘operating electrical weed control devices at around 20 kHz is much safer than operating lower frequency devices (including DC)’.

RootWave’s patented higher-frequency eWeeder is 10,000 times less likely to cause cardiac arrest than a device using standard 50Hz AC in the event of accidental contact with an electrode. For DC devices, RootWave is 2,500 times less likely.

The design of the product is intended to minimise the risk of someone coming into contact with live eWeeding electrodes, but this study gives assurance that RootWave high frequency technology is significantly less harmful should that unlikely scenario occur.

Safe use of electricity

The study, completed in 2022 by professors who work for AMC Consulting and Imperial College, London found that operating at around 20 kHz gives ‘substantially greater opportunity to increase the power levels of the equipment without causing ventricular fibrillation (arrythmia of the heart/cardiac arrest), should a person come into direct contact with the electrodes.’ Concluding ‘It is thus advisable to operate weed control devices in the region of 20 kHz.’

Frequency, in electrical terms, is simply how many times the current oscillates from positive to negative per second. Standard 50Hz electricity oscillates 50 times per second, at 18kHz it is 18,000 times. Direct Current (DC) has no oscillation.

In recent years farmers have had worries about their ‘toolbox shrinking’, but fortunately, there is a solution that can help farmers meet this target: electric weed control (eWeeding).

eWeeding kills all weeds, delivering full control in independent trials. Moreover, electricity treats deep into the roots, and does not disturb the soil or seed bed, helping to reduce new weed growth, and create healthy soils to capture carbon.

Furthermore, while weeds might develop resistance to chemical herbicides, this is not the case with eWeeding.

This method is not only effective, but also safe for earthworms and other soil macrofauna, and can be used near water courses and in environmentally sensitive areas.

In addition, eWeeding can be lower cost than using chemical herbicides on a per hectare, per season basis.

RootWave will release its first tractor-powered eWeeding machine in 2024 for use in orchards and vineyards, with products for arable row crops expected from 2026.

If the EU are to take bold steps towards protecting ecosystems by increasing their pesticide reduction goals – in the case of weed control at least, farmers may actually be heading for a better future than they imagined.

In numbers – the squeeze on herbicides:

• In the EU, chemical herbicides that account for 82% of the herbicide value in  fruit crops are being revoked or are at significant risk of being revoked. (33% for cereal crops, 87% for broad-acre row-crops, 94% for vegetables, and 98% in municipalities).
• There is herbicide resistance with 68% of the current modes of action. No new herbicide mode of action has been discovered in the past 20 years.
• In fruit crops, glyphosate accounts for 76% of the herbicides used.  88% of academic studies since 2016 conclude glyphosate is carcinogenic.  In the EU, its license was extended by one year until end-2023 whilst the authorities reassess its safety.  Glyphosate was recently withdrawn for US Consumers due to safety concerns and litigation costs.  There are currently 533 legal cases against herbicide manufacturers relating to safety.
• EU Green Deal looking to halve the use of pesticides, including herbicides, by 2030 and COP15 committed to halving the risk from pesticides by 2030.
• There is a 11% CAGR in organic retail sales and 8% in organic farmland with EU committed to increasing organic farmland to 25% by 2030.