Horticulture

PRACTICAL
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Research

Mulching Comparison for Sweet Potato Production

Staff Contact:
Tomoko Ogawa (515) 232-5661 tomoko@practicalfarmers.org

Cooperators:

Andy & Melissa Dunham Grinnell Mark Quee West Branch

Funding By:
CERES

Web Link:

http://bit.ly/pfi_horticulture

In a Nutshell Weed control is one of the primary

concerns in vegetable production as it is labor-intensive and time-consuming. black plastic mulch, and paper mulch (WeedGuardPlus) in sweet potato production. of sweet potato rows.

Cooperators tested bare soil, common

Cooperators planted four replications Both mulches resulted in fewer weeds. The plastic mulch resulted in the
greatest yields. Project timeline: May 2012 - September 2012

About the Cooperators

Andy and Melissa Dunham own and operate Grinnell Heritage Farm near Grinnell, Iowa. They grow USDA-certified organic vegetables, flowers and herbs on their 80 acre farm which has been in the family for over 150 years. They also tend a small herd of beef cows raised on pasture. They market their produce through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), Iowa City Farmers Market, and through select grocery stores. Scattergood Friends School is a small Quaker boarding school about 15 miles east of Iowa City, with approximately 10 acres of IDALS-certified organic gardens and orchards and about 30 acres of pastures, upon which they grass-finish beef and lamb. Scattergood also raises heritage breed Guinea hogs, a small flock of turkeys, occasional broiler flocks, and a laying flock of about 100 chickens. Scattergood primarily grows food for their school, but also markets some products through New Pioneer Coop in Iowa City and Coralville.
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Sweet potato mulch trial at Scattergood Friends School farm, West Branch, Iowa.

Background
Weed control is one of the primary concerns in vegetable production as it is labor-intensive and time-consuming. Mulches are often used to suppress weed growth as well as to prevent soil erosion and conserve soil moisture. While plastic mulch has been a standard mulch option by many farmers, it raises waste disposal concerns (Ingman et. al., 2012). The purpose of this study was to investigate an effective and affordable alternative to plastic mulch appropriate for sweet potato production. To do so, cooperators kept records of weed count, yield, and labor involved for different types of mulch application as well as for the control plot (bare soil).

in sweet potato production (Table 1). Because BioTELO, a biodegradable mulch, is still in process of being approved for organic use in the United States (it has been approved in Europe and Canada) and both cooperators farms are certified organic, we did not test BioTELO this year. At Grinnell Heritage Farm, plastic mulch was laid with a raised-bed shaper, plastic mulch layer. They tried to lay the paper mulch with the same machine, but the mulch ripped at the edges of raised beds, so rolled it out by hand and buried the edges. At Scattergood Farm, beds were prepared with a Maschio rototiller and drip irrigation lines were laid out. A mulch layer was used for both the paper and the plastic. Adjusting the irrigation hoses under the paper caused many tears, so they simply laid an additional soaker hose
January 2013

Methods
For this project, cooperators tested bare soil (control), common black plastic mulch, and paper mulch (WeedGuardPlus)
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Table 1 Product Black plastic WeedGuardPlus

Descriptions of mulch products for the study

Description Black polyethylene plastic film Dark brown colored paper mulch. 100% biodegradable. Allows water, air and nutrients to permeate Table 2 Marketable Tubers (#) 41.8 39.8 41.5 2.47 0.8275

for the paper treatments. Next they poked holes in the mulches and transplanted the slips by hand. Cooperators planted four replications of sweet potato rows. Grinnell Heritage Farm planted the variety Beauregard, and Scattergood Friends School planted Beauregard and Georgia Jet. Plots were 100 feet long for Beauregard and 60 feet long for Georgia Jet at Scattergood Friends School. Beauregard plots were 40 feet long at Grinnell Heritage Farm. Each row was treated with different mulch options or was left bare as the control. There was three to four foot spacing between the rows. Plots were replicated four times. Sweet potato seedlings were planted with 12-inch spacing between plants. Mulches were laid manually. After laying the mulches, holes were manually punched to transplant sweet potatoes by hand. The time required to apply different types of mulch was also recorded. Cooperator Andy Dunham took a weed count once during the season by counting four randomly selected one square foot quadrates within each treatment. Cooperator Mark Quee did not take weed counts but alternatively recorded the hours spent weeding. He also kept observation notes. Cooperators harvested sweet potatoes when they reached peak maturity, and took measurements for marketable yield and the number of marketable versus cull tubers. At Scattergood Farm, no edge rows were planted, as they did not have enough slips to fill the allocated space. Therefore Mark Quee and his students collected data on all of the rows. They dug eight crowns from each row and weighed them individually. Then they used a potato plow on the tractor to retrieve the rest of the sweet potatoes. At Grinnell Heritage Farm, two different types of mulches were applied on 5/18/2012 followed by sweet potato planting on 5/21/2012. At Scattergood Farm, the mulches were applied on 5/23/2012 and they planted sweet potatoes one week later on 5/30/2012.

Marketable tubers, cull tubers, and weed count

Marketable Tubers (lb) 38.5 b 38.3 b 42.3 a 0.49 0.0020 Cull Tubers (#) 0.5 b 1.5 ab 2.0 a 0.37 0.0723 Cull Tubers (lb) 0.5 c 2.3 b 3.8 a 0.45 0.0064 Weed Count (per ft) 89.9 a 7.3 b 7.5 b 3.85 < 0.0001

Mulch None (bare ground) Paper Plastic Standard Error P-value

*means with different letters are statistically different

Results
Labor Hours At Scattergood Friends School, cooperator Mark Quee reported that laying the paper mulch required about two hours more labor than the other treatments due to complications with laying it down and trying to work around the drip tape. Beyond that, few differences in labor were noted. Very little time was required for weeding the mulched treatments but some was required for the control treatment; harvest times did not differ. At Grinnell Heritage Farm, plastic mulch required the fewest hours overall (1.3 h), followed by paper mulch (1.67 h) and bare ground (1.82h). While bare ground did not require installation or set-up time, more time was spent weeding. Weed Count At Scattergood Farm, both mulch treatments equally suppressed weed growth. There were weeds present in Table 3

the bare ground control, but fewer than normal due to the drought, according to cooperator Mark Quee. At Grinnell Heritage Farm, weed counts differed between the mulch types (P < 0.0001) and between the four replications (P = 0.0037), as shown in Table 2. Bare ground had the most weeds (89.9 per foot of the bed), and like at Scattergood, the mulches did not differ (7.3/ft for paper and 7.5/ft for plastic). Likely because of minor soil gradients, there were more weeds in the third rep than in other reps. Weed counts in the bare soil varied between reps but counts did not vary between reps in either paper or plastic mulch (mulch*rep P = 0.0149, data not shown). Marketable Tubers and Yield At Scattergood because of limited replications within the Georgia Jet variety, results were unable to be included in statistical analysis and are presented as observations only. Eight randomly-

Average crown weight and yields between mulches

Beauregard Average Crown Weight (lb) 5.4 c 6.5 b 8.5 a 0.57 0.0009 Total Row Yield (lb) 368.2 b 327.7 b 522.4 a 42.13 0.0634 Georgia Jet Average Crown Weight (lb) 3.3 5.4 10.1 Total Row Yield (lb) 186.6 284.8 354.2

Mulch None (bare ground) Paper Plastic Standard Error P-value

*means with different letters are statistically different Page 2 of 3 PRACTICAL FARMERS OF IOWA www.practicalfarmers.org January 2013

selected crowns (vines and all attached tubers) were weighed within each replicate of each treatment. Average crown weight for the Beauregard plants differed between mulches (P = 0.0009) but not between reps (P = 0.7733), as shown in Table 3. A similar trend was noted in the Georgia Jet crowns. Total yield of sweet potatoes differed between mulches in Beauregard plants, being greatest for plastic, and not differing between bare ground and paper mulch (P = 0.0634). Similarly, Georgia Jet with plastic mulch yielded the greatest numerically, but statistical difference cannot be determined. No data was available for cull tubers or pounds of cull from Scattergood. At Grinnell Heritage Farm, the mulch treatment did not affect the number of marketable tubers (P = 0.8275) but did affect the total pounds of marketable sweet potatoes (P = 0.0020), as shown in Table 2. The plastic mulch resulted in more marketable pounds than did the bare ground or paper mulch treatments, which did not differ. As with weed count, there were rep differences in the total marketable yield (P = 0.0032, data not shown), probably due to within-field variation. Where weed pressure was the greatest within a replicate the sweet potatoes yielded the least and vice versa in the other replicates.

Mulch May 2012

Conclusions and Next Steps

Data from the two farms indicate that mulch in either a plastic or paper form results in fewer weeds during sweet potato growth, and the increased labor of laying the mulch may be balanced out by the reduced weeding labor. However, Mark Quee noted that the mulches tended to blow around, leaving the rows and sometimes damaging the plants. At both farms, the plastic mulch resulted in the greatest yields. At Grinnell Heritage Farm, however, it also resulted in more cull plants, though this may simply be due to greater production and not a greater percent of cull tubers. Paper mulch did not seem to improve yields in the same way that plastic mulch did, but did reduce weeds equally as well. More replications in future trials and experimentation with additional mulch types may elucidate more differences.

Mulch and sweet potatoes June 2012

Sweet potatoes July 2012

PFI Cooperators Program

References
Porter, D.O. WVU Extension Service. Are Mulches a Good Idea? <http://www.wvu. edu/~agexten/ageng/resource/mulch.htm> Ingman, M., K. DiFrancesco, A. Doniger, T. Selko, D. Degeorge, I., Miller, and M. Anderson. 2012. Developing a Biodegradable Alternative to Plastic Mulch Film. Organic Broadcaster. Volume 20 Number 3. Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service. < http://www.mosesorganic.org/attachments/broadcaster/obonline203.pdf>

PFIs Cooperators Program gives farmers practical answers to questions they have about on-farm challenges through research, record-keeping, and demonstration projects. The Cooperators Program began in 1987 with farmers looking to save money through more judicious use of inputs.

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January 2013