Management of weeds in sugarcane, environmental impact, economic effectiveness and control

Abstract

Weed management systems have had and have a major importance for agriculture, although it can be done in various ways, the important thing is to obtain good control with those that are the most economical and at useful. A study was carried out with the objective of evaluating the environmental and economic impact of different weed management systems, which was conducted in commercial production areas of the Basic Production Unit "Vitalio Acuña", belonging to the Enterprise Unit of Base "Dos Ríos" of the Santiago de Cuba province. Four weed management systems were studied: Chemical (total application of herbicide), Mechanical (weeding with mechanical cultivation), Chemical / Mechanical (application of herbicide located in bands), and Cultural (unaltered coverage of crop residues). A strip experimental design with three replications was used. The coverage of weeds was determined at 30, 60 and 90 days after the treatments were applied, the economic expenses incurred were calculated and the pollutant load to the atmosphere was determined. At 90 days the lowest percentage of weed cover was obtained in the Cultural and Chemical / Mechanical management systems. The weed management system that had the best overall behavior from the point of view of control, environmental and economic impact, was the Cultural, followed by the Chemical / Mechanical management system.

Keywords

• residual mulch
• environmental impact
• weeds
• management system