Physical weed control in organic carrot production

A three years experiment (2000-2002) was carried out on the possibility to perform the physical weed control of carrot in the typical cultural and environmental condition of the Fucino Valley (that is the most important area of carrot production in Italy), in order to obtain a “biological” product. Firstly, the strategy of physical weed control of carrot in the Fucino Valley was defined and included the realization of the false seed-bed technique, a flame treatment before crop emergence and one or more mechanical (precision hoeing) and manual interventions in post-emergence. False seed-bed technique was performed by means of a specific spring tine harrow two meters wide, while flaming was performed by means of an operative machine equipped with four “open flame” rod burners 50 cm wide. A specific precision hoe with eleven units (inter-row of about 18 cm) was built, tested, improved and set up to perform weed control both between (by means of a rigid tine supporting a 9 cm wide horizontal blade) and in rows (by means of vibrating teeth or torsion weeder). During the testing period the evolution of weed flora (both presence and biomass) was monitored and carrot root yield was recorded. Moreover work chains characteristics, manpower use and physical weed control cost were determined. The results were quite good and put in evidence that physical weed control in organic carrot cultivated in the Fucino Valley can be performed, obtaining relevant and high quality yields, without the need of too many hours of manual labour and with fully acceptable costs, taking also into account that in Italy the market price of “biological” carrot is quite high.