Abstract: There is described a burner for vegetable matter such as straw or the like, comprising a combustion chamber (9) having an upstream and a downstream end, a blower (6) discharging air and cut vegetable matter into the upstream end of the combustion chamber, an igniter (10) positioned at the upstream end of the combustion chamber, and a number of screens (14, 15, 16) extending across the combustion chamber and spaced from each other in the flow direction, the mesh size of the screens decreasing in the flow direction. The burner is used, inter alia, in a soil steriliser and stubble burner which comprises a chassis, a pick-up device (1) to collect a swath of vegetable-matter from the ground, a feed device (2, 3, 4) to feed the vegetable matter to a chopper (5) and a blower to transport the vegetable matter to the upstream end of the combustion chamber of the burner, the combustion gases from the burner being directed via a discharge device (11) onto the surface of the ground.