Show Notes
This episode, an interview with Sarah Stewart, and a shorter segment from an interview with Jichul Bae. The last few years, farmer and videographer Sarah Stewart has been working with Organic BC on some extension work that has involved a pretty big focus on emerging technologies for mechanical weed management. She’s learned a tonne about autonomous weeding robots and the use of lasers and electricity, and the increasing role that artificial intelligence is playing in the age-old battle to keep the weeds at bay. But gathering information was only half the job. The other half was to share it. Among other things, Sarah has produced videos about her findings and hosted equipment demonstrations around BC and coordinated conference panels and, behind the scenes, helped me produce the episodes about weeding agritech that you may have already listened to on this podcast. I asked Sarah for an interview because it recently struck me how well-positioned she is to talk about the strengths and limitations of the newest generation of weeding agri-tech. What you’ll hear is that she’s bullish on the role she expects these tools will play on BC farms over the long term, but perhaps not right away. Listen to hear why! Then: a segment of my conversation with Dr. Jichul Bae, a researcher at Agriculture and Agrifood Canada based at the Agassiz Research and Development Centre. Jichul focuses on weed management and is an expert on herbicide resistant weeds. I had requested an interview with Jichul to talk about the strengths and limitations of weeding agritech. We ended up having a wide-ranging conversation. I’ll only be sharing a piece of it here, in which we talk about how good weeds are at adapting to our weed management strategies, especially when we rely too much on one form of management, regardless of the form in question. I’m including this segment here because, in the midst of all the hype around the promise of the newest generation of mechanical weeding technology, Jichul wants us to consider that no single approach should be thought of as a panacea. This episode of the Organic BC Podcast was funded by the Governments of Canada and British Columbia through the Sustainable Canada Agricultural Partnership. Opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and guests and not necessarily those of the Governments of Canada or British Columbia. The Governments of Canada and British Columbia and their directors, agents, employees, or contractors will not be liable for any claims, damages, or losses of any kind whatsoever arising out of the use of, or reliance upon, this information.
More from The Organic BC Podcast
This podcast was funded by the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund. Funding for the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund. This episode was produced in partnership with the Small Scale Meat Producers Association. In this episode of the podcast, the second of a two-part series about managed grazing for weed control. In episode one I spoke with grazing expert Sarah Flack and retired BC Agrologist Greg Tegart about the principles of controlling weeds with managed grazing. In this episode, my conversations with three BC-based farmers about their successful management of three different invasive weeds: knapweed, Canada Thistle, and finally, adding a rare bit of mystery and intrigue on the Organic BC Podcast, an unidentified invasive grass. Guests in this episode: Julia Smith of Blue Sky Ranch on knapweed control Joseph Moilliet of Aveley Ranch on control of Canada Thistle Amber Rowse Robinson of Brass Bell Farm
This podcast was funded by the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund. Funding for the Climate Agri-Solutions Fund has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund In this episode of the podcast, the first of a two-part series about managed grazing for weed control. Managed grazing can take different forms with different names…rotational grazing, adaptive graving, management-intensive grazing, mob grazing, but the core principles of each are the same: don’t allow livestock to overgraze a given field or paddock, and don’t allow those animals to return until the field has sufficiently recovered. There are numerous benefits to well-executed managed grazing, and one of them is that managed grazing can be an effective alternative to the use of mowing, herbicides and tillage to control weeds in the pasture. And it’s this benefit that this series will focus on. In this episode, we focus on the principles of managed grazing for weed control. Guests this episode: Sarah Flack: Sarah has over 30 years of experience working with grass-based farmers on business planning combined with agronomy to improve forages, soils and pastures. Sarah also teaches workshops and has written books, articles and other publications with the goal to create more successful grass-based livestock farms. Greg Tegart: is a retired agrologist who spent much of his career working as a field crops & range specialist for BC's Ministry of Agriculture. He primarily focused on forage crops, field crops, and livestock production. Additional Resources Webinar about weed control with managed grazing featuring Sarah Flack produced by Organic BC & Small Scale Meat Producers Association
This episode was funded by the Organic Federation of Canada to highlight the work of the 2025 Review of the Canadian Organic Standards By the time this episode airs, the newest version of the Canadian Organic Standards will have been published. This is a big deal! We only get an update to the standards every five years, and only after a multi-year process involving dozens of people, many of them volunteers, collectively devoting thousands of hours of their time to the endeavor. To mark this momentous achievement, this episode we’ll take a look at the massive effort that goes into each cycle of updates to the Canadian Organic Standards, and we’ll learn why these updates are so important. My guests this episode are Rochelle Eisen, who chaired a working group of the 2025 Review of the Candian Organic Standards, and Nic Walser, who sat on the Technical Committee. If the updated standards have been published by the time you're reading this, you'll be able to find them here.
This episode was funded by the Organic Federation of Canada to highlight the work of Organic Science Cluster 4. The Organic Science Cluster is an industry-led research and development endeavour co-managed by the Organic Federation of Canada and the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada at Dalhousie University. It is also supported by the AgriScience Program under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership together with over 80 funding partners. This episode, my interview with Dr. Juli Carillo, associate professor in the faculty of Land & Food Systems at UBC Vancouver. Together with her UBC colleague Dr. Claire Kremen, Juli’s Organic Science Cluster 4 research is exploring how on-farm habitat can be amended to intensify beneficial ecological interactions. Translation: how can we increase and support biodiversity on the farm that in turn supports farm production goals? Juli joins me to outline her project and her results so far.
This episode was funded by the Organic Federation of Canada to highlight the work of Organic Science Cluster 4. The Organic Science Cluster is an industry-led research and development endeavour co-managed by the Organic Federation of Canada and the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada at Dalhousie University. It is also supported by the AgriScience Program under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership together with over 80 funding partners. This episode, my interview with Dr. Loren Rieseberg, Professor of Botany at UBC Vancouver about his Organic Science Cluster 4 research. Dr. Rieseberg and his team are combining genomics, ecophysiology, and participatory plant breeding with a goal of developing climate resilient veggie cultivars that are better adapted to organic production systems. Translation: this project wants to create improved, open-pollinated carrot and lettuce varieties for Canadian organic farmers, and Dr. Rieseberg joined me to tell me about combining traditional and technological breeding techniques in order to do so.