Weed control: The James Hutton Institute tells Sally Drury how it is minimisingdemand for weed control on its farms

摘要

Whether you are growing onions, raspberries or trees, quality counts. Weeds in the crop will compete for water and nutrients, will reduce light levels reaching seedlings and can harbour pests and diseases. Ultimately, weeds can lead to delayed maturity, loweryields, problems at harvest time and crops being downgraded or rejected outright by the customer.Good field preparation will give a clean start. But how do you keep it clean? Cultural techniques can reduce and even eliminate herbicide use but care must be taken to ensure that they do not propagate perennial weeds and that repeated practices do not damage soil structure, accelerate the degradation of organic matter or leave soil prone to erosion. Labour costs can render cultural techniques impractical for some crops.