Research
Cover Crop results for 2004
2004 Results
In Ames, we were quickly short of man-hours when it came time to weed the vetch/rye plots. Weed pressure was so high that it quickly became unrealistic to count and weigh weed samples from the whole plot. The high weed pressure resulted in very few melons and no marketable ones. This is very different from last year (a very dry year with less weed pressure) where there were no differences between cover crop and black plastic mulch plots. In Muscatine, we also found that cover cropped plots had lower yields than plastic mulched plots (P<0.01). The weed pressure was not as bad in Muscatine. However, the rye that was knocked down in June started to re-seed and became established.
Number and weight of marketable melons harvested from a single plot of muskmelons at Ames and Muscatine, Iowa, 2004.
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Ames
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Muscatine
| ||
|
|
Number
|
Weight
(lb)
|
Number
|
Weight
(lb)
|
|
Plastic - weed
every week
|
44.0
|
182.3
|
65.5
|
337.5
|
|
Plastic - weed
every 3 weeks
|
43.3
|
180.9
|
64.4
|
328.2
|
Cover crop - weed every
week
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
27.0
|
104.5
|
|
Cover crop -
weed every 3 weeks
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
27.3
|
123.8
|
|
LSD
(P<0.05)
|
13.9
|
64.1
|
6.4
|
42.2
|