Weed management/control hand weeding

Slashing, Hand Hoeing, and Mulching Bredell (1973) compared several physical methods with chemical measures to control weeds in citrus. Herbicides were found to be the most effective tool in managing weeds. Depending... 

While diseases, insects and, most importantly, weeds cause problems for organic farmers, most felt that they had developed cultural practices to manage these pests. One fermer said that he has learned how to handle the problems on his larm, it was the off-farm problems that concerned him. However, with an unexpected infestation of pests, these organic farmers were decidedly at risk because they did not have any quick-fix solutions to the problems (i.e. use of pesticides). On the other hand, since pests are developing resistance to their chemical controls and with the difficulty of agricultural research keeping up with the development of new products, organic farmers were at less risk to this resistance because of their use of cultural (non-chemical) controls. 

Weed control in agriculture is very important as a high percentage of weed causes a high crop reduction, even more than pests. While in ancient times people were dependent on removing weed by hand, today s weed control is managed by synthetic and natural substances. Since synthetic substances for weed control cause the same environmental and health problems as synthetic substances for pest control, natural substances such as essential oils seem to be highly preferable (Dayan et al., 2009). 

The loss of active ingredients suited to carrot production means that increasingly machine and hand weeding may be needed to control weeds such as fool s parsley, hemlock and wild carrot, which are difficult to control with herbicides. Volunteer potatoes also pose a problem in carrots. Particular care is needed in managing weeds where crops are grown tmder plastic. 

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