Proceedings of the Sixty-first Annual Meeting of the Northeastern ...

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INTEGRATING WEED CONTROL STRATEGIES IN STRAWBERRIES DURING THE
ESTABLISHMENT YEAR. R.R. Bellinder and C.A. Benedict, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY.
ABSTRACT
Managing weeds during the establishment year is crucial to the long-term
productivity of strawberries. Growers need to rely on a management system that can
be maintained until the crop becomes established and competitive. Current practices
that solely rely on herbicides, usually result in the need for large amounts of hand-labor
and cultivation that dramatically increase operational costs. Recent research has
shown that inter-seeding a cover crop or living mulch to suppress between-row weeds
has some promise. In the spring of 2006, seven treatments were applied to plots
having one row each of the varieties 'Earliglow' and ‘Jewel’. The treatments were: A.)
Standard Broadcast Herbicide, B.) Standard Broadcast Herbicide + Fescue, C.) Banded
Herbicide + Cultivation(Between+In-row), D.) Banded Herbicide + Fescue, E.) Fescue +
In-row cultivation, F.) Between + In-row cultivation only, and G.) Hand-weeded Check.
All applications were made using a CO 2 sprayer that delivered 34 GPA. In-row
cultivation was done with a Buddingh Finger Weeder (Buddingh Weeder Co., Dutton MI)
and a torsion weeder (Bezzerides Brothers, Orosoi, CA). An s-tine cultivator was used
between rows. Data collection included weed counts and dry weights and runner
production and number throughout the growing season. Total weed numbers were
lowest in treatment C followed by B, F, D, A, E, and G, respectively. The banded
herbicide+cultivation treatment had both the lowest number of in- and between-row
weeds. Total and in-row weed dry weights were lowest in broadcast+fescue. Whereas,
between+in-row cultivation was lowest in between-row weights. The similarity of in-row
weights was due to a few, large weeds surviving. In fescue treatments, a decrease in
the number of runners per plant can be attributed to the management of the fescue.
Cultivation did not have a detrimental impact on runner production.
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