Innovative Strategies for Physical Weed Control on Hard Surfaces in Urban Area in Central Italy: Results Achieved in Two Different Cities

Weed control is one of the most serious problems in vegetable crops limiting yields. Therefore, the aim of this work was to set up and improve innovative strategies and machines for physical weed control in organic or “integrated” vegetable crops cultivated in five important areas of Central and Southern Italy. Experimental on-farm trials were carried out on fresh marketable spinach, processing and fresh market tomato, cauliflower, savoy cabbage, potato, greenhouse cultivated leaf beet, garlic, chicory, fennel and carrot. The traditional farm weed management system was always compared to an innovative system. The innovative strategy was the combination among preventive methods (false or stale seed-bed technique), cultural methods (crop spatial arrangement adjusted in order to improve machinery effectiveness) and direct control methods (flaming, hoeing, etc.). Different kinds of flex tine and rolling harrows (patented by the University of Pisa) and flamers were used for false or stale seed-bed technique. Precision hoes and hoe-conformed rolling harrows, equipped with elastic tines for selective in-row weed control, were used for post emergence interventions. The innovative weed management systems always resulted in significant weed abundance reductions (from 70 to 100%), relevant yield increases (from 10 to 100%) and high contractions of manpower requirement (from 20 to 80%) compared to the standard systems. The results of these on-farm experimental trials emphasise that physical weed control can be effectively performed using the innovative machines built at the University of Pisa. These machines can also be easily adjusted for use in other crops and agricultural contexts.