Horizon Europe: NEUTRAWEED, a European project coordinated by the Sant'Anna School to set up a worldwide network in the field of ecology and achieve sustainable weed management, also thanks to new technologies, gets underway
The kick-off meeting of the project coordinated by Marco Esposito of the Institute of Plant Sciences has just taken place: over the next 48 months, the aim is to create shared knowledge and test new sustainable technological solutions for artificial intelligence

Sustainable weed management is crucial, as the dependence on chemical control and intensive tillage in simplified cropping systems leads to environmental and agronomic challenges . To address this challenge, the NEUTRAWEED project (‘Understanding Neutral Weed Communities - Crops Interactions and Identification of Artificial Intelligence Algorithms for Species-Specific Weed Management Using Robots’) was setup under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme of the Horizon Europe programme.
The Sant'Anna School hosted the kick-off meeting of the project coordinated and managed by Marco Esposito, research fellow, with the scientific co-responsibility of Stefano Carlesi, both belonging to the Institute of Plant Sciences of the Sant'Anna School. The overall objective of NEUTRAWEED is to form an international and cross-sectoral network of 16 organisations in four continents (Europe, Africa; Asia and America) and specifically in Italy, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain, Kenya, Argentina, China and the United States, to work on a joint research programme in the fields ofecology and weed management ,artificial intelligence and robotics.
The NEUTRAWEED project focuses on weed ecology, artificial intelligence and robotics to develop solutions that promote neutral weed communities. These communities coexist with crops without compromising yield or quality. NEUTRAWEED's research team will study new technological solutions for neutral weed communities in various cropping systems and their interactions with crops and other organisms from an agro-ecological, physiological, microbiological and molecular perspective . NEUTRAWEED will also develop prototype weeder robots, i.e. robots that use cameras and artificial intelligence to recognise weeds and eliminate them without using pesticides, designed for species-specific weed management. In addition, the project will create artificial intelligence algorithms to distinguish specific weed species, providing efficient strategies for their management.
This new project will contribute to the advancement of research by promoting interconnections between countries, providing academic and technical training and education, and involving local, national and international stakeholders to create shared knowledge on theinteraction between weeds and crops and new sustainable artificial intelligence technological solutions for weed management, including a multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to understand the multiple interactions between weeds and crops from four aspects: agro-ecological, physiological, molecular and microbiological.
Cover photo, from right: Paola Cassiano, Anna Camilla Moonen, Nicola Grossi, Nicola Silvestri, Marco Esposito, Stefano Carlesi, Franco Angelini, Leonardo Ercolini, Patrizia Carlomagno.