Effects of cultural methods and physical weed control on intrarow weed numbers, manual weeding and marketable yield in direct-sown leek and bulb onion

Summary

Manual weeding of intrarow weeds in seeded leek and bulb onion grown organically can be very labour-intensive. Four field experiments, two in direct-sown leek (Allium porrum L.) and two in direct-sown bulb onion (Allium cepa L.), were made in this investigation to study the effects of physical and cultural methods on intrarow weed numbers, time consumption for hand-weeding and marketable yield parameters. The physical methods considered were: pre-emergence flaming and harrowing, and post-emergence hoeing close to the row (only leek) and vertical brush weeding. The cultural methods were: seed priming, slurry placement, and cultivar choice (only leek). Flaming plus brush weeding gave generally the highest intrarow weed control at 92% and 87%, respectively, in the two leek experiments and 39% (only brush weeding was effective) and 74%, respectively, in the two onion experiments. Time consumption for hand-weeding following the different treatments was linearly related to the remaining numbers of intrarow weeds, with no significant influences of the experimental factors on the general relationship. Generally, the cultural methods had no significant influence on the effects of physical weeding in terms of their effect against intrarow weeds. They did not affect the tolerance or robustness of the crop plants against negative impact from the physical control methods. However, seed priming and cultivar choice did generally improve yield in the leek experiments and seed priming also did so in the one experiment with onion.