Techniques described above are integrated into a cohesive weed management strategy on a number of Ohio vegetable farms. Managers of two of these farms recently shared their insight on the use of cultural practices in their overall weed management plan.
Hirzel Farms produce certified organic field crops and processing tomatoes. They follow an alfalfa-corn-soybean-tomato rotation and use no chemical fertilizer or pesticides. They harvest the first year hay crop and then fall plow. After soybean harvest, fields to be planted to tomatoes are tilled and formed into beds. Fall rye and hairy vetch are seeded in September (Figure 6). In the spring, a homemade "under-cutter" is pulled along the beds just under the soil surface to kill the cover crops and lay the residue down. A generous portion of compost is applied and tomatoes are transplanted no-till. The rye-vetch residue suppresses weeds, minimizing the amount of hand weeding and cultivation needed to grow the crop.
Fulton Farms use a blend of approaches to produce jack-o-lantern pumpkins. Like Hirzel Farms, Fulton Farms rotate crops to minimize disease and insect pests, and reduce weed seeds in the soil seed bank. Soybeans are worked into the rotation at least once, and sweet corn is grown the year before pumpkins. Pumpkins are grown no more than one year in five. A mix of fall rye and hairy vetch is seeded after sweet corn harvest. Rye growth is checked in the spring with an application of Poast1 around mid-April. Hairy vetch continues to grow until about 2 weeks before pumpkins are seeded, when it too is desiccated with a tank-mix of Roundup1 and 2,4-D. Pumpkins are seeded no-till. Overhead irrigation is used to apply and incorporate the herbicide Curbit1 and to supply adequate water and nutrients to grow the crop. The cover crop residue provides a lot of the weed control in this system and keeps the pumpkins off the ground (Figure 7), ensuring a better quality product.
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