CASE STUDY
Al Winner
DeGraff, Ohio | Lightning Weeder Owner Since 2021
AT A GLANCE
Operation:
Certified organic dairy farm, Logan County, Ohio
Scale:
Nearly 900 certified organic acres, 200+ dairy cows, robotic milking system
Crop:
Organic soybeans (grown as feed for dairy herd)
Challenge:
Transitioning from conventional to organic with no prior experience managing weeds without chemicals
Solution:
LASCO Lightning Weeder with Electric Discharge System (EDS)
Time Using:
5 years
Units Owned:
2 (purchased second unit in 2025)
The Operation
Al Winner has been farming in Logan County, Ohio for nearly four decades. He started with 10 cows and a stanchion parlor, and over the years built that into a modern operation milking more than 200 dairy cows across nearly 900 acres. Today the farm runs a robotic milking system—the kind of investment that signals a farmer who evaluates technology on performance and return, not novelty.
The Winner farm has also dedicated over 1,300 acres to permanent agricultural preservation through Ohio’s farmland easement programs,1 a reflection of the family’s long-term commitment to keeping productive land in agriculture.
When the dairy herd transitioned to organic about five years ago, every acre of feed had to follow. For a lifelong conventional farmer, that meant solving a problem he’d never had to face: managing weeds without chemicals.
The Challenge
“We had zero experience with organic,” Winner said. “We were conventional farmers.”
That’s a daunting starting point in a state where weed pressure is intensifying every year. Glyphosate-resistant marestail is now present in roughly 30% of Ohio soybean fields, and waterhemp populations have been climbing steadily, appearing in 11% of surveyed fields and developing resistance to as many as seven herbicide site-of-action groups.2 Palmer amaranth—described by Ohio State University weed scientists as “pigweed on steroids”—has been confirmed in multiple Ohio locations and is resistant to glyphosate and ALS inhibitors essentially statewide.3 For conventional growers, the options are narrowing and the programs are growing more expensive. For a farmer who can’t spray at all, the challenge is even more direct.
For a dairy operation that grows its own feed, uncontrolled weeds are not just a field problem—they directly threaten productivity and the organic certification on which the entire business depends. Winner needed a tool that could deliver reliable, repeatable weed control without chemical inputs, and he needed to find one before weeds got ahead of him.
Finding the Lightning Weeder
Winner first learned about the Lightning Weeder through a demonstration in central Ohio. “We heard about them, went and looked at the fields, and bought one after that,” he said.
The in-field proof was enough.
In the Field
Winner runs the Lightning Weeder exclusively on his soybean crop. His approach is built around timing and the natural growth cycle of the beans. Once the plants reach roughly knee height—too tall to get through with a cultivator—he begins making passes with the Lightning Weeder, targeting the weeds that have emerged above and through the soybean canopy.
He typically makes three passes per field over the course of the season, knocking down approximately 70% of the weed pressure with each pass. That number matters not because it’s total eradication, but because it doesn’t need to be. The Lightning Weeder’s role is to reduce weed competition at the critical window when the crop is establishing itself. Once the soybeans close their canopy, the crop does the rest—shading out whatever remains and carrying through to harvest.
“Once you get the weeds knocked off above the beans, the canopy keeps the weeds down,” Winner explained. “We can keep the beans pretty clean.”
That integration—electrical weed control working with the crop’s own biology rather than replacing it—is what makes the system practical for a working farm. It fits into an existing operation without requiring a farmer to rethink the entire season.
The Results
Five years in, the Lightning Weeder has become a cornerstone of Winner’s organic weed management program. The transition to organic added significant work to the operation—something he anticipated—but the Lightning Weeder gave him a practical, repeatable method for managing weeds where he previously had none.
“We still have weeds, but we can manage them now,” he said. “Before, you couldn’t manage them.”
That confidence has translated into continued investment. Winner purchased his second Lightning Weeder unit last fall—a decision that speaks louder than any testimonial. He also noted that among the electric weed control options on the market, the Lightning Weeder stands out for its efficiency, requiring roughly half the tractor horsepower of competing systems while delivering comparable results.
After evaluating the technology over five seasons and across hundreds of acres, Winner has made the Lightning Weeder a permanent part of his operation. For a farmer who builds his decisions around long-term performance, that kind of commitment says everything.
“We still have weeds, but we can manage them now.
Before, you couldn’t manage them.”
— Al Winner, DeGraff, Ohio