The ANR and the Research and Innovation axis of the Ecophyto II+ plan invite you to participate in the closing webinar of the ROSE Challenge

Tuesday 28 February 2023, from 14:00-16:30 –  Connexion link 

Towards weed control solutions that save on plant protection products: the results of the ROSE challenge

The ROSE challenge launched in 2017 by the ministries in charge of the Ecophyto Plan and the French National Research Agency (ANR) aimed to accelerate the production of alternative solutions to chemical herbicides, or solutions that would greatly reduce their use. By focusing on a major technological barrier, under-row weeding, it has made it possible to explore new solutions.

A specific funding instrument of the ANR, a “challenge” makes it possible to simultaneously compare the performance of several technological and scientific solutions with regard to a specific theme and predefined objectives. It is a tool that contributes to the structuring and mobilisation of industrial and academic players, making it possible to remove scientific barriers and accelerate technological developments and transfers.

In vegetable crops and field crops with wide row spacing (maize, sunflower), weed control between the rows already often uses mechanical techniques, but this is not the case for weed control under the row, which generally depends on chemical pesticides. The four teams financed in the framework of the challenge have developed innovative solutions to face this problem. The regular meetings organised in the field by LNE and INRAE have enabled the solutions of the different projects to be compared in real-life situations and to be evaluated.

The four projects have thus contributed, each with their own specificities, to the evolution of knowledge and technological capacities dedicated to robotic weeding.

This closing webinar will allow you to discover the main results of this challenge.

In the meantime, we invite you to watch the video immortalizing the last field meeting by following this link.