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Cultural Practices and Mechanical Weed Control for the Management of a Low-Diversity Weed Community in Spinach
oleh: Ioannis Gazoulis, Panagiotis Kanatas, Nikolaos Antonopoulos
Format: | Article |
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Diterbitkan: | MDPI AG 2021-11-01 |
Deskripsi
Low-diversity weed communities are dominated by few species that are highly competitive to crops. The management of such weed communities should rely upon sustainable cultural and non-chemical practices, especially in crops such as spinach (<i>Spinacia oleracea</i> L.), where very few herbicides are available. A two-year field trial (2020 and 2021) was conducted to evaluate different fertilization practices (broadcast and banded), intra-row spacings (15 cm, 11 cm, 7 cm), and mechanical weed control treatments (untreated, one treatment, two treatments) for the management of a low-diversity weed community in spinach. Weed competition severely affected spinach commercial biomass (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.845). Compared to broadcast fertilization, banded fertilization reduced weed biomass and improved spinach yield and nitrogen use efficiency. Narrow intra-row spacing (7-cm) reduced weed biomass by 28 and 45% compared to intra-row spacings of 11-cm and 15-cm, respectively. Two mechanical weed control treatments resulted in 49% lower weed biomass compared to a single treatment. Commercial biomass increased with decreasing intra-row spacing (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.881) and increasing the number of mechanical treatments (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.911). More cultural and non-chemical practices should be evaluated for weed management in spinach, especially at sites infested with low-diversity weed communities.