Abstract
Mulching is a management technique to control weeds in organic and integrated tomato production. Our experiment was designed to investigate the impact of organic mulch combined with irrigation on the weed species composition and weed seed bank of open-field tomato. For three consecutive years (2016-2018), treatment of microplots included mulch only, irrigation only, mulch and irrigation combined, and the untreated control. Marginal microplots (bordered by the surrounding mown grassland) were distinguished from inner microplots to check margin effect. We collected soil samples from different depths and let the weed seeds germinate in a greenhouse. Germinated weed seedlings were counted and identified. The number of weeds, and time needed for weeding was reduced by mulching, temperature, sampling date, and the succession of the study years. Irrigation, on the other hand, had no effect on weeding time. Margin effect and year had the highest influence on weed species composition. Regarding seed bank, year and mulching had the highest influence. The importance of other variables remained low, with mulching being the strongest explained variable. Regardless of treatments, weed composition of the study area was transformed during the three-year study.
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Claims 5
Claim · model-written summary
Mulching reduced weed numbers and weeding time.
- Taxon
- tomato
Solanum lycopersicume1 - Treatment
- mulchinge0
- Outcome
- number of weeds, and time needed for weedinge0
- Direction
- reducede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The number of weeds, and time needed for weeding was reduced by mulching”
e1“Tomato”
Claim · model-written summary
Irrigation had no effect on weeding time.
- Taxon
- tomatoSolanum lycopersicume1
- Treatment
- Irrigatione0
- Outcome
- weeding timee0
- Direction
- no effecte0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Irrigation, on the other hand, had no effect on weeding time”
e1“Tomato”
Claim · model-written summary
Margin position and year had the largest effects on weed species composition.
- Taxon
- tomatoSolanum lycopersicume1
- Outcome
- weed species compositione0
- Direction
- highest influencee0
- Setting
- Margine0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Margin effect and year had the highest influence on weed species composition”
e1“Tomato”
Claim · model-written summary
Year and mulching had the largest effects on the weed seed bank.
- Taxon
- tomatoSolanum lycopersicume1
- Treatment
- mulchinge0
- Outcome
- seed banke0
- Direction
- highest influencee0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Regarding seed bank, year and mulching had the highest influence”
e1“Tomato”
Claim · model-written summary
Weed composition changed over three study years regardless of treatment.
- Taxon
- tomatoSolanum lycopersicume1
- Outcome
- weed compositione0
- Direction
- transformede0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Regardless of treatments, weed composition of the study area was transformed during the three-year study”
e1“Tomato”
The same questions in other papers
mulching · weed · Solanum lycopersicum (tomato)Positive and negative results
48 papers in the same direction as this paper · 2 in the opposite direction · 4 reporting no difference from an alternative
- positive
- negative
- negative
51 papers more in this group
See all 55 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.