Weed composition in Hungarian phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia Benth.) seed production: Could tine harrow take over chemical management?

Phacelia tanacetifolia, an excellent cover, green manure and honey crop is now widely cultivated throughout the world. One of its principal European seed production regions is northwestern Hungary, where the recent withdrawal of a potent herbicide, linuron, created a new challenge for many growers. The goal of this study is to identify the main factors determining weed species composition in the phacelia fields of the region and to assess the efficiency of tine harrow and clopyralid herbicide in reducing weed abundance and biomass. We carried out a series of weed surveys across the study region following a two-level design: (i) we estimated the cover of all weed species in 205 fields (broad-scale survey, BS); and (ii) in 22 of these fields, we provided more precise biomass measurements (counting the individuals and measuring the dry weights of all weed species) in microplots samples (fine-scale survey; FS). To characterize the fields, 34 background variables were also collected for all of the studied fields. In both investigations, Chenopodium album was by far the most abundant weed. Within the BS, using a minimal adequate model containing 11 terms with significant net effects, 20.93% of the total variation in weed species data could be explained...

PINKE Gyula;  GICZI Zsolt;  VONA Viktória;  DUNAI Eva;  VÁMOS Ottília;  KULMÁNY István;  KOLTAI Gábor;  VARGA Zoltán;  KALOCSAI Renátó;  BOTTA-DUKÁT Zoltán;  CZUCZ Balint;  BEDE-FAZEKAS Ákos; 

2022-04-12

MDPI

JRC128298

2073-4395 (online),   

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/12/4/891,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC128298,   

10.3390/agronomy12040891 (online),