Do Crop Rotations in Rice Reduce Weed and <i>Echinochloa</i> spp. Infestations? Recommendations for Integrated Weed Control
2021
Gabriel Pardo | Ana Isabel Marí | Joaquín Aibar | Alicia Cirujeda
The species belonging to the genus <i>Echinochloa</i> represent the main weeds in rice fields worldwide. Heavy soils are especially appropriate for this crop that is often grown in monoculture. A drought period in 2012 impeded farmers from sowing rice in some parts of the region of Aragon (northeastern Spain) and, unusually, they seeded alternative crops such as winter cereal, fescue (<i>Festuca arundinacea</i>), ryegrass (<i>Lolium multiflorum</i>) and lucerne (<i>Medicago sativa</i>). A total of 20 fields were selected, in which rice had been grown in monocrop until 2011 and several crop sequences were established afterwards; weed vegetation was recorded in spring, summer and autumn 2014-16 to find out if the crop rotations reduced weed infestations. Winter cereal and fescue were the crops with the highest soil cover; ryegrass and lucerne had difficulties in installation probably due to the heavy soil textures. <i>Echinochloa</i> spp. plants were found in the winter cereal stubble after having grown fescue for the previous two years and rice before that; in the forage fields, small plants of earing <i>Echinochloa</i> spp. adapted to mowing were detected. Recommendations for Integrated Weed Management that arise from the observations are ploughing the winter cereal stubble before seed shed of the emerged <i>Echinochloa</i> plants, assuring a high density of the forage crops, and efficient herbicide control in rice fields.
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