Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Crop Sciences, Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University, Sari, Iran
2 Researcher of Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center of Mazandaran, AREEO, Sari, Iran.
3 Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Crop Sciences, Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University, Sari, Iran
Abstract
This research was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of cover crop on the density and biomass of weeds in a saffron field in the form of a randomized complete block design with three replications located in Neka in 2022. The experimental treatments applied in the saffron farm was include: cover crop planting of Persian clover (Trifolium resupinatum), barley (Hordeum vulgare), fenugreek (Trigonella foenum - graecum L.), rapeseed (Brassica napus), treatment of no weed control with cover crop (control 1) and weeds control with no cover crop (control 2). The measured traits included the density and biomass of broad-leaved and narrow-leaved weeds, the dominant weed density in the field, Shannon-Wiener species diversity index and the performance indicators of saffron corm that were measured including the number of daughter corm, total daughter corm yield, average daughter corm weight, corm average diameter and corm yield in different weight groups per square meter. The results showed that barley cover crop cultivation treatment has the lowest density and biomass of broad-leaved and narrow-leaved weeds among the treatments, so that its cultivation caused a decrement of 96 and 88% of the biomass of broad-leaved and narrow-leaved weeds, respectively. In addition, among cover crops, the highest species diversity related to canola and the lowest one related to barley are 0.93 and 0.43, respectively. With the comparison among the cover crops, the highest total yield of daughter corm belonged to canola, clover, fenugreek and then barley were 1273.9, 1243, 1234.8 and 1175.2 g/m2, and the highest total corm yield, average corm weight and corm yield above 8 g was obtained with canola cover crop cultivation, which showed an increase of 6, 79 and 14%, respectively, compared to the control with no weeding. In general, although the weeding treatment as well as the saffron corm yield indicators were superior to other treatments, but this point should be notice that with the planting of cover plants, along with the stability and fertility of the system in the long term, there is a higher economic advantage, ultimately brings benefits to the farmer.
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