ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2009) — Sinalbin, the same compound that gives white mustard its pungent flavor, could also prove useful in fighting weeds. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) studies suggest sinalbin and other compounds released into soil by applications of white mustard seed meals can kill or suppress certain weedy grasses and annual broadleaf weeds.
Agronomist Rick Boydston, with the ARS Vegetable and Forage Crops Research Unit in Prosser, Wash., is conducting the studies with plant physiologist Steven Vaughn, at the ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Ill. They evaluated the effects of three mustard seed application rates: half a ton, one ton and two tons per acre. Of the three, the one-ton and two-ton rates worked best in peppermint, reducing barnyard grass, green foxtail, common lambsquarters, henbit and redroot pigweed populations by 90 percent several weeks after application.
...
The research aim is three-fold: provide organic farmers with an alternative to hand-pulling, burning and other laborious methods of weed control in specialty crops including peppermint and potted ornamentals; develop value-added uses for seed meal, should mustards prove useful in making biodiesel; and diminish environmental risks possibly resulting from conventional herbicide use.
Organic Weed Control: Scientists Serve Up Mustard Meal To Tame Weeds
Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:00:00 GMT
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment