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Farmers are becoming more interested in application of environmentally friendly methods and tools for weed control. Propane gas flame weeding is an approach that does not leave any chemical residue in the soil, plants and surface and ground water. In this research, machine vision and image analysis techniques were used in real time application of variable rate flame weeding for controlling inter-row weeds in a maize field. The main objective of this study was to compare the results of continuous (uniform) flame weeding with targeted flaming in controlling the inter-row weeds in an organic maize production field. In the field experiments, the effects of three levels of ground speed (0.5, 0.7 and 0.9 m s-1) at three growth stages of V4 (4-leaf), V6 (6-leaf) and V8 (8-leaf) maize plants and two flame weeding methods (uniform and targeted) on weed eradication and fuel consumption were investigated. The performance of the system and the response of weeds to flaming at different treatments were evaluated by measuring the weight of the consumed propane gas and weight and number of dead and survived weeds (1 and 3 day after each flame weeding). In general, uniform (continuous) and targeted (discrete) flaming showed similar results in weed eradication (on both weight and number-basis), while fuel consumption of the targeted method was significantly lower than the uniform application. The effect of travel speed on weed control was significant such that weed eradication was higher at lower travel speeds. The results of this investigation indicates that targeted discrete flame weeding by using machine vision technology is a potential alternative to uniform flaming with extra advantages of lower fossil fuel consumption and air pollution.