Living Mulches Eggplant Growth and Yields in Living Mulch and Monocultures

INTRODUCTION The primary limitations of conventional weed control programs include a heavy reliance on capital intensive, toxic, and non-renewable resources (pesticides and petrochemicals) to manage weed competition. Weed emergence from the soil top layers is facilitated by the continuous disturbance created through cultivation, irrigation, pesticide applications, machinery, and other cultural practices. Additionally, conventional commercial operations strive to maintain a “bare” soil between the planting rows, which leaves the top soil vulnerable to erosion due to wind or rainfall, and susceptible to compaction by cultivators and other field equipment. No-till practices, primarily developed for erosion management, are now widely adopted in the continental U.S. on agronomic crops as a necessary alternative to traditional cultural practices. However, no-till farming often results in higher herbicide volume application demands than traditional “bare-ground” practices.