Efficacy and Cost of Cultivators, Steam, or an Organic Herbicide for Weed Control in Organic Vineyards in the San Joaquin Valley of California

Abstract

<jats:p>Weed management is an important problem faced by organic grape (<jats:italic>Vitis vinifera</jats:italic>) growers as there are few effective and economic options available. However, new organically acceptable weed control products have become available in recent years. Several studies were conducted to compare the efficacy of two mechanical weed control methods (French plow and Bezzerides tree and vine cultivator) with steam, and an organic herbicide (d-limonene) in organic raisin and wine grape vineyards. The experiments were designed as split plots with the aforementioned treatments as main plots with additional weed control treatments (handhoeing and no handhoeing in the raisin grape vineyards; hoeing, no hoeing, steam, and d-limonene in the wine grape vineyard) one month after the main plot treatment as subplots. The plow provided the greatest level of weed control among the treatments followed by the cultivator. The time required to hoe mechanically cultivated plots was also generally lower than the other treatments. Steam and herbicide only suppressed weeds for 2–3 weeks, and the time needed to hoe plots in these treatments was generally similar to the untreated control at all sampling dates. The mechanical treatments also were two to four times more cost-effective than steam or herbicide. Therefore, mechanical treatments were the most effective and economical weed control methods, though none of the treatments affected vine growth, midday stem water potential, petiole nitrate concentration at bloom, grape yield, or quality.</jats:p>

Comparative Programs for Arthropod, Disease and Weed Management in New York Organic Apples

“…In addition, some authors have also reported that growth of certain weeds can even be stimulated by tillage [ 33 ]. Nevertheless, mechanical tillage was observed to provide slightly better weed control than organic herbicides, as reported in other studies [ 16 ]. In our trial, wood chips worked better than mechanical tillage in terms of weed-free area.…”

“…Therefore, more frequent sprays might have increased the effectiveness of the limonene, soap, and even caprylic acid treatments. Limonene has been reported to provide very efficient weed control in almond orchards in California [ 17 ], whereas poor results were observed in vineyards, with acceptable control lasting only 2–3 weeks [ 16 ]. The need for more frequent treatments for effective control of organic herbicides has likewise been suggested [ 17 , 37 ].…”

“…Tillage, mulching, and mowing are the main strategies when it comes to organic weed management [ 12 , 15 ]. New organic herbicides may bring new opportunities, but results regarding the use of such herbicides have been quite inconsistent [ 15 , 16 , 17 ].…”

Field Testing of a Biomass-Fueled Flamer for In-Row Weed Control in the Vineyard

“…In such tests, a different methodology for weed biomass assessment might be recommended. The method used in this study and in previous research [9,13] has the disadvantages of being destructive, thus increasing data variability, and time-consuming. Visual assessment of ground covered by the weeds, coupled with digital image analysis [10,14], while appropriate to assess treatments aiming at a complete removal of the weeds, as in most field crops experiments, seems hardly suited for permanent crops, when the purpose is just to reduce weed competition, because of the difficulty of establish a correlation between the ground area covered by the weeds and their actual biomass.…”

The effects of water steam on weeds and fungal diseases in the stands of onion

“…Another increasingly used weed control method is thermal weed control. Thermal weed control can be used in various crops (Shrestha et al, 2013;Velička et al, 2016) In different countries, diverse methods of thermal weed control are used in organic farms: flaming (Sivesind et al, 2012), combustion gases (Ulloa et al, 2010;2012;Datta, Knezevic, 2013), hot foam (Cederlund, Börjesson, 2016), hot water (De Cauwer et al, 2014) and water steam (Melander, Kristensen, 2011;Shrestha et al, 2012;Vidotto et al, 2013). Researchers have indicated that thermal weed control is more effective than mechanical weed control (Virbickaitė et al, 2006;Ascard et al, 2007).…”