2013 Annual Report for FNE12-736
Conservation tillage for organic cabbage: Yield, weed growth, and management costs
Summary
This experiment seeks to build on previous work in cover crop mulches and organic no-till farming by growing cabbage after oats and vetch in three tillage treatments: conventional tillage, zone tillage, and no-till. Three cabbage varieties were to be grown in the three treatments in four replications of 12 by 5 foot plots in a randomized complete block design for each cabbage variety. During the growing season we had planned to measure cabbage growth and yield, soil nitrate, and weed density to assess the effects of the tillage treatments on weed control and cabbage production. This research will also focus on quantifying the labor and equipment costs of each treatment by closely measuring the amount of time each production activity (like transplanting and weeding) takes on a per plot basis. Hail and flooding destroyed our vetch plantings in late May of 2013. For the second year in a row we were unable to perform the experiment as planned. We now plan to complete the experiment and outreach in 2014 and the spring of 2015.