2019 ASHS Annual Conference

The organic sector has become one of the fastest growing agricultural movements in the United States. Many communities have made remarkable progress in promoting and supporting organic farming. Weed management is one of the most significant challenges for organic vegetable growers since weed invasion reduces crop yield and quality. Many environmental and climate variations affect vegetable-weed competition corresponding to different field practices. Hand weeding has been the most popular practice for small-scale organic vegetable growers. Unfortunately, hand weeding forces farm workers to work in a stooped and uncomfortable position for long periods, which can lead to serious chronic health problems and essential direct and indirect costs to the farmers and workers.

The purpose of this presentation is to share an innovative method to design, develop, and implement a multivariate-multifunctional database to help small-scale organic farms to prevent weeds starting from the initial stage of production. We monitored different types of vegetables in Spring 2019 ( Beet, Carrot, Kale, Swiss chard, Pepper, and several types of Tomato, Lettuce, and onion) produced on 0.5 acre plot in a small urban farm in Guilford County, North Carolina. We documented environmental and climate factors for all vegetables above: The plot soil characteristics, air temperature, soil temperature, humidity, and weather conditions (sunny, cloudy, rain showers, etc.) Growing condition records included labels of the seeds and soil for transplants in the tray, the total number of seeds in each cell, the type of horticultural vermiculite has been used, lighting and tray location/arrangement in the transplant stage, plant height from seeding stage to semi-mature stage, type of weeds appearing in different stages corresponding to vegetable growth, the time of putting the transplants in the ground, the way of putting the transplants in the ground. This database incorporates numbers of records, description of conditions, and photo images of vegetable and weed growth.

The expected contribution of this study is to find or calculate (1) the correlation between vegetable growth, weed growth, and circumstantial factors with respect to human decisions and climate variations; (2) the average and optimized vegetable growth rates corresponding to natural and human factors; and (3) the survival ratio between vegetables and weeds under a well-monitored environment.