Description
Cultural control can include a wide range of different weed management tools, such as crop choice, crop drilling date and cultivation type, seed rate through to the use of in crop non-chemical weeding methods. On a wider rotational aspect cultural control can also be included a diverse cropping system pillar of weed management.
Explanation
Cultural control can be adapted to suit the local soil type, weather conditions, farm size and equipment available so is very flexible and adaptable.
Advantages
Flexible as many tools that can be altered to ensure higher efficiency.
Requires further knowledge of agronomy systems so includes farmers, advisers and researchers working together sharing knowledge.
Many options can be used together so can be flexible to suit conditions.
Could reduce the use of pesticides.
Drawbacks
May be highly weather-dependent and less effective under unfavorable conditions.
May require additional planning and coordination if machinery is needed at different times compared to standard farm operations.
Technical Aspects
- Technical readiness: This solution is readily available to farmers today but can require a deeper level of agronomy knowledge and understanding of a whole system to ensure the building blocks of cultural control fit together to achieve weed suppression. This would include understanding the weed seed bank of the fields, how cultivation choice and depth will affect that seed bank. If there is a high grassweed burden, then delayed drilling date allows time for effective stale seedbeds ahead of drilling.
- Ease and efficiency of implementation: This tool can be easily implemented on all farms, but as with the technical readiness aspects it does require a higher level of agronomic knowledge.
- Need for training and education: More education is required on a basic agronomy level to think about the whole system and planning the rotation to prevent a weed burden building up over time. There is no need for specific training additional training other than agronomy knowledge (such as BASIS).
- Need for investments: There may need to be further investment in research for more data on efficacy of certain aspects of cultural control to ensure confidence in the farmer. There is no need for specific investment in equipment.
Policy Recommendations
Policy recommendations include demonstration activities, along with training and education programs to highlight the key aspects of cultural control from a weed management perspective. This could be farmer-to-farmer learning to ensure it is practical and there are knowledge exchange opportunities between conventional and organic farmers associated with this approach. There may need to be further investment in research for more data on efficacy of certain aspects of cultural control to ensure confidence in the farmer.
Social Analysis Color
green
Environmental Analysis Color
green