Physical weed control in protected leaf-beet in Central Italy

In Central Italy leaf-beat is a typical and very important protected cultivation. In leaf-beet protected cultivation weed control is one of the most important problems, because of it’s quite long crop cycle (about 4-5 months). The aim of this research was to set up an efficient non-chemical weed control strategy performed with innovative machines built and set up by the University of Pisa. A two-year (2006-2007) “on-farm” experimental trials were carried out in Crespina (PI). A conventional weed management technique (consisting in one pre-transplanting chemical treatment) was compared to an innovative physical weed control strategy (consisting in stale seedbed technique, in some post emergence precision hoeing and in-row hand-weeding treatments). In the conventional technique the leaf-beat was manual transplanted, while in the innovative strategy it was sowed with a precision pneumatic planter. All the innovative machines for physical weed control were adjusted and set up for the protected cultivation. In the two year trials similar yields were recorded for the two systems in comparison. Total labour time (for weed management and crop planting) was appreciably lower in the conventional system in the first year of experiment (-67%), while, in the second year, some improvement in the innovative technique allowed to reach lower values with respect to the conventional technique (-40%). Weed dry biomass at harvest was significantly lower for innovative system (on average -50%)