Weed Control Methods in Sugar Beet Cultivation

Abstract

The effect of non-chemical weed control on organically grown sugar beet crop weedness and productivity was investigated at the Experimental Station of the Aleksandras Stulginskis University in 2015-2016. The aim of the experiment was to establish the influence of living mulch, mechanical weed control methods (mellowing, cutting, mulching) and steaming on number and dry mass of weeds and sugar beet crop quality and productivity parameters. Treatments of the trial were: 1. hand weeding-cutting, (control treatment); 2. Interrow cutting; 3. Persian clover living mulch; 4. white mustard living mulch; 5. spring barley living mulch; 6. steaming. According to the results of investigations, hand weeding-cutting and steaming were the most effective weed control methods. In intensive soil tillage conditions the highest smothering of weeds was observed of persian clover and white mustard living mulch. Other weed control methods were suitable for organically grown sugar beet but not significantly effective. Different weed control methods usually had no significant impact on the sugar beet crop density, but yields substantially decreased from 20 to 35 t ha-1. The effect on sugar beet root quality indices was mostly minor. However the highest amount of white sugar was observed in control variant (8.51 t ha-1) plots because of the biggest root yield.