8 Free Online Weed Identification Tools

Steam Weeding by WEEDTECHNICS
5 min readJan 26, 2024

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Jeremy Winer

Weed identification may appear challenging. However, it can become very easy and convenient once you take your first step in understanding it. There are a lot of people out there who want to identify weeds but don’t know how. To make your life easier, we have provided you with some must-have mobile apps and fantastic weed identification tools like a pro.

Weed Identification Chart

The Weed Identification Tool by Weeds Australia is a free online tool for identifying common weeds. This tool was created by Weeds Australia, a website powered by the Centre for Invasive Species Solution (CISS). The goal of this tool is to help horticulture and agriculture professionals manage and control weeds within Australia.

This tool helps you identify weeds by checking the features that match your sample at hand. Does it contain a fleshy stem? Does it have simple or broad leaves? Every time you check a feature, the weeds that don’t match your filters will get eliminated.

For example, if you select grass or grass-like as the feature, all weeds with stems will get eliminated. That’s why it’s important to define as many characteristics as possible for your weeds.

With the Weed Identification Tool by Weeds Australia, all you need to do is to check the characteristics of the plant sample you have and the tool will return some results for you.

Biosecurity Queensland Listings

Biosecurity Queensland is a government organization that aims to protect Queensland from animals and plants that can cause harm to the environment, economy or human health. It maintains an online directory of invasive species and their impacts. This site is useful if you want to know whether an organism is considered a pest in Australia.

Within the website is the Biosecurity Queensland Listed Weeds Register, an online database that contains information on plants that are considered to be a threat to the biodiversity, amenity, and productivity of Queensland’s natural environment.

The database also includes information on weeds found in Queensland, their distribution and impacts. It also includes images and information about control measures for each weed.

The Biosecurity Queensland Listing has a massive list of invasive species of plants that you can check.

Brisbane City Council Weed Identification Tool

The Brisbane City Council Weed Identification Tool is a great online resource for identifying weed species.

It provides detailed images and descriptions of over 50 weed species found in Brisbane, including some that are not listed as noxious weeds by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Queensland (DAFQ).

The Weed Identification Tool also contains information on how to control each weed, including links to chemicals registered for use in Brisbane.

The Brisbane City Council Weed Identification tool has a detailed list of more than 50 species of weeds found in Brisbane,The Brisbane City Council Weed Identification tool has a detailed list of more than 50 species of weeds found in Brisbane,

PlantSnap

PlantSnap is a great way to identify plants and flowers. It has over 200,000 species of plants in its database, so if you’re not sure what you’ve got, this could be the tool you need. The app works best when you take a photo of the weed in question. It can also help you identify plants via text or email.

It’s free to download, but there are in-app purchases for more advanced features such as viewing photos on a map or adding multiple images at once. If you want to know exactly what plant you’re looking at, this is your go-to resource.

With PlantSnap, all you need to do is to capture an image of a suspected weed. Then let the AI match your picture with a name and species of the weed in question.

iNaturalist

iNaturalist is a free app available for Android and iOS. This app allows users to record observations of plants and animals in their local environment, and share them with the worldwide community of naturalists. The app has over 2 million users and has been downloaded over 10 million times.

The app uses your smartphone camera to automatically record photos as you walk through your local area, making it easy to add records without having to type anything in or upload photos from your computer. You can also manually enter observations if necessary.

Each observation includes information about when it was observed, where it was observed and what species was observed along with photos. These photos can be uploaded from your device or from online sources such as Flickr or Google Photos.

What’s great about iNaturalist aside from its capability to identify any weeds, is that you can share and discuss it with other naturalists.

SmartPlant

SmartPlant is an app that provides access to a database of over 6,000 plant species. The app allows users to identify plants based on their appearance and other characteristics. It also includes information about each plant’s habitat, growth habit and more.

The app is available for Android devices as well as iPhones and iPads. The developers are working on adding new features such as the ability to take photos of weeds growing in your garden or yard and uploading them directly to the database for identification.

SmartPlant’s main goal is to provide you with care and gardening tips for your plants, but it has also included weed identification for you to know how to destroy them.

Plantifier

Plantifier is an iPhone app that can help you identify plants. It uses a database of over 2,000 plants, including weeds and invasive species, with photos and descriptions. You can also submit your own photos to help the database grow.

This app is simple to use: Type in your location and hit “Identify Plants.” Then select the type of plant you want to identify from a list of over 20,000 plants. The app will give you detailed descriptions of each plant’s characteristics and its uses as well as tips for controlling it. If you’re not sure which plants are weeds or how to control them, Plantifier will help solve that problem for you too.

Plantifier has more than 20,000 plant species in its database. All you need is a picture of the plant in question and Plantifier can give you the name and species of the plant.

Google Lens

Google Lens is a great app for identifying weeds. The app uses your camera to identify objects, plants, animals and more. It can also help you find information about the object you’re looking at.

The app can be used on both smartphones and tablets, but you need to have a device that supports Google Lens to use it (check here).

When using Google Lens, simply point your camera at the weed you want to identify and tap the screen. You’ll see some information about the plant pop up on screen along with a “more” button in case there’s more information available from sources like Wikipedia or other apps.

Google Lens is simply Google Search using images. With this app at your disposal, you can take a picture of a plant and search Google’s database with your image.

Conclusion

There are a lot of different types of weeds that can make your yard look bad, but with a little bit of research, you can figure out what they are and remove them. As long as you have some kind of identifier or guidebook, you’ll be on the right track to pulling up these nasty plants.

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