podcast

The podcast discusses an article on the use of organic methods in agriculture, specifically cover crops for weed suppression. The experiment was conducted on a certified organic vegetable farm in Texas over a two-year period. Sundengrass was found to be the most successful cover crop in suppressing weeds. The guest, a vegetable farmer, shares his own experiences with cover crops and highlights the benefits such as reduced labor costs and increased revenue. Overall, the article and the guest's experiences suggest that cover crops can be an effective method for weed management in organic farming. Hello and welcome to my podcast. Today we're going to jump right in and review an article that I came across, which to me really lets light on the use of organic methods in agriculture. The article is written by Sodhi Khushfah and Alexis Reselis, titled Cover Crops for Weed Suppression in Organic Vegetable Systems in Semi-Arab Subtropical Texas. I'll leave a link in the comments if you'd like to view the article and read it yourself, and hopefully reflect on a few key points mentioned throughout today's episode. I've also invited a special guest. He's a generational vegetable farmer from the Hawkesbury who has grown up around very traditional farming ways and methods, but since taking over the business has developed a more organic and sustainable approach. Please welcome Luka Santana. Hi Lydia, thanks for having me on this episode. I'm looking forward to delving into this article with you and hopefully even learn a little bit myself. Thanks Luka for being here. I'm super excited to see where you stand on this and what your opinions are, and maybe even hearing about how your experiences have shaped the way you do this. Yeah, for sure. Let's get into it. Alright, well a little bit of context first. The article was based in subtropical Texas in a place called Edinburgh on a certified organic vegetable farm. The experiment was conducted to analyse and test the weed growth amongst cash and cover crops, while determining which cover crop had the best growth, and I guess at the end of the day just ultimately deciding whether or not the cover crop can actually be used for weed suppression. Now the experiment was carried across a two year period from 2017 to 2018, and began in the summer season of 2017. The experiment was selected and three crops were chosen which were sundengrass, cowpea and sunhemp, with the inclusion of a mixed treatment of all three crops as well as a control. The cash crops were selected which were zucchini and bush beans. Over the two years the cover crops were respectively and fairly managed across all treatments. After 60 days all crops were terminated and two weeks after termination paddocks were ready and cover crops were sown in preparation for the full season. Now Luka you read the article and saw the results, what did you think of the findings? Well Liv I was quite intrigued with the result of the sundengrass. In the article's results and discussion they clearly outlined the success of sundengrass compared to the other cover crops. With sundengrass being quite a tolerant crop to drought and warm weather it probably had ideal weather conditions for growth. I found it interesting but not surprising that the growth of the crops, the cover crops, corresponded with the growth of the weeds amongst these crops. Yeah for sure, I completely agree. We see huge significance between the different treatments in both the growth of the cover crop as well as weed biomass amongst them. How do you feel about the significance between the sundengrass results compared to the control? Yeah I mean the difference is crazy. The control had over 800 grams of weed biomass in 2017 and over 600 grams per metre squared in 2018. That's compared to the sundengrass and even the other treatments which all contained below 20 grams of weed biomass. I think those results really indicate that the experiment was a success. Well that's actually funny you say that because my next question is do you believe that the cover crops can suppress weeds based on this article and your own experiences? Definitely. This article is a great example of showing other organic farmers whether that be vegetable or another crop production that cover crops can certainly have a role to play in weed management in a farm system. I feel this way not just based on the article though but also through my own experiences as a vegetable farmer. I have witnessed first hand different control methods to control weeds amongst our crop. Both my father and grandfather used traditional methods and I watched them apply a significant amount of herbicides to control weeds. Now I'm not saying that they didn't necessarily work but the way I viewed the impacts and the position of the chemicals within the future just didn't sit right with me and I knew in order for me to continue I needed to change things. That's when I discovered organic farming methods and one of those methods was incorporating cover crops into my weed management system. And how did you find that worked out for you? Tell us some benefits that you found when undertaking this method. Well as a lot of farmers know organic farming is extremely labour intensive and it doesn't stop at weed control. By incorporating cover crops I saved on labour costs and gained in production which ultimately increased my revenue at the end of the day. These are all just benefits and results of reducing weeds on farm and focusing on your cash crops. I would highly recommend using or at least considering the use of cover crops to suppress weeds. Yeah okay. It's actually quite interesting you said those things because I found when reflecting on the article that a lot of your reasoning and drive align with what they've said about why cover crops are and can be an important method for weed suppression. I think this article was super relative to the future of agriculture and so it shows just how successful cover crops can be. Thanks Luca for joining us on today's episode. I know I really enjoyed hearing what your thoughts were as well as your experience with cover crops and organic farming. Don't worry. Luca it was great to be here. Alright well that's all for today's podcast. I hope you guys enjoyed. I'll catch you on the next week's episode on the benefits of bees in agriculture. Catch you guys later.