Abstract: Weed seed burial and excavation by tillage determines seed depth, seed survival, germination and pre-emergent seedling mortality. However, quantitative estimates of seed burial are available for only a few tools and often without reference to soil structure, moisture or tillage depth. This study proposes a conceptual model for predicting weed seed movements during superficial tillage in response to the type of tool, tillage depth and soil structure. The proposed model was calibrated with field data collected using coloured plastic beads as weed seed proxies. Beads were placed at different vertical and horizontal positions before tillage, using augers to preserve soil structure and collected after tillage by opening trenches and counting beads found at different depths. Approximately 33% of the beads were retrieved and used to establish bead distributions from which model parameters were estimated. Cross-validation showed that prediction quality was satisfactorily (modelling efficiency = 0.