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  • From: road's end farm <organic101 AT linkny.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Abandoning plastic mulch
  • Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 12:00:20 -0500


On Jan 30, 2006, at 10:45 AM, Lynn Wigglesworth wrote:

From: "Goodwill at Homefields Farm"
I am contemplating not using any plastic mulch this year for our
tomatoes,
peppers, sweet potatoes etc, as between bed maintainence and end of
season
removal are a real bear on an organic farm.

Why not try putting part of each crop in the plastic, and part of it not, for a couple of years? That way you'll know which works better on your particular operation; and won't risk losing the whole crop if something in your climate really needs the plastic.

Don't forget you'll need more water without the plastic.

From: Lynn Wigglesworth
Peasant Farmer
Tioga County, PA

Last year I used a living mulch of hairy vetch with my tomatoes. It's
supposed to be a good 'companion' plant for tomatoes, beyond just being a
legume. It grows thickly, can be mowed, and my tomatoes did well...no
disease at all. I left it on for a winter ground cover. You do have to
make sure the tomatoes get a good head start on the vetch, and the vetch
does tend to take over and climb the tomatoes if you let it.

Watch out for systems that kill the vetch (or vetch and rye) and then say you'll get a "weed suppressing" killed mulch that you can plant into. People discussing this often don't mention that you'll probably badly need a herbicide a couple of weeks later as weeds will go crazy, at least in my experience, in all that lovely N from the vetch. This is probably much less of a problem if the vetch is left alive and mowed, as the vetch should crowd out most weeds and the mowing will help control them also. (Another alternative is to first mow the cover, then to till it in a couple of weeks later and cultivate after that for weed control, or seed a slower-growing cover. This is very useful in crops such as winter squash that eventually run over the whole area and prevent mowing the aisles.)

Be aware, however, that vetch is likely to establish itself as a weed. It's a highly useful cover in vegetable growing systems, but apparently a huge weed problem in grains as the seed is difficult to clean back out of the crop.

From: Zaid Kurdieh
Norwich Meadows Farm

Check this out
http://www.hort.cornell.edu/extension/commercial/vegetables/online/2005veg/index.html

Hi Zaid --

I had a brief conversation with NOFA certification people about this at the conference, and they said they hadn't listed it as acceptable yet though they are looking into it. The last time one of these materials came around it turned out to be leaving traces of unacceptable materials in the soil. Maybe this one doesn't.

Another possible source of difficulty with these is the timing of breakdown. If the material breaks down too fast, it won't do the job. If it takes too long, it'll be in the way the next season, and/or build up in the soil. It's even possible for one material to cause both problems, if it comes apart into largish pieces too early but those pieces don't disintegrate entirely by the next season. I note that in the Cornell trials the material was breaking down by the end of July, which is a month or more earlier than I want it to. As a further complication to this, time to breakdown is likely to be different in different soil types, in different weather, and in relatively biologically active soils as opposed to relatively inactive ones.

My suggestion on these: 1) if you're certified, check with your certifier before buying and 2) try on a small portion of your crop first, to see what the timing of breakdown is on your particular place.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



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