Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Vegetables: asparagus
Practices
- Crop Production: biological inoculants, continuous cropping, cover crops, irrigation, no-till, organic fertilizers
- Education and Training: on-farm/ranch research
- Pest Management: allelopathy, chemical control, integrated pest management
- Production Systems: permaculture
- Soil Management: organic matter
Proposal summary:
As chemical fumigation is being phased out replanting fields back into asparagus becomes a large issue for producers because of soil pathogens. This trial combines several recommended grower practices that could help asparagus fields establish and retain a good plant stand. Longer productive field life would result in higher yields and profits. These include use of buried trickle tubing, compost application at planting, chemical control of root pathogens, and mustard covercropping in a multi-replicate small field of New Jersey Supreme asparagus.
Project objectives from proposal:
The objective of this trial is to evaluate if we can move toward a new production system by comparing NJ Supreme asparagus yield and populations in two treatments. A control treatment is in replant ground that has been rotated out for 4 years. The experimental variables are combined in the same field in several alternating blocks. Combined the variables could increase fern biomass and stalk number per crown by the second year of the trial. Yield will be monitored the second year of trial.