Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Weeds are among the major factors limiting yield in organic vegetable and other horticultural crop systems and their management is particularly challenging in organic crops. The lack of effective biological weed management solutions is a major obstacle to the adoption of organic farming practices and represents a key limitation to the expansion of the industry despite the continuous growth of the U.S. organic market.Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation (ASD) is emerging as a broad-spectrum biological soil treatment for the management of soilborne pests and pathogens, including weeds. Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation also known as Biological Soil Disinfestation is a microbial-driven process based on the use of organic amendments.Integrated a series of research and extension activities, the primary goal of this project is to increase the profitability and sustainability of organic vegetable and other specialty crop production systems and to facilitate the transition from conventional to organic production practices by optimizing and integrating the use of Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation as a biological weed management tactic in specialty crops systems, while promoting soil health.Coordinated research activities and on-farm demonstration trials will be conducted to optimize and integrate Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation into organic specialty crop systems and evaluate the efficacy of ASD in suppressing key weed species in Florida and Pennsylvania, two states representative of the U.S. Northeast and Southeast regions.Besides assessing the efficacy of Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation in suppressing specific weeds, the project will allow us to investigate the impact of ASD on the soil-plant nutrient dynamics and investigate the mechanism of suppression examining the impact of the treatment on the soil microbiome. To ensure the viability of ASD we will assess its economic sustainability and will assess any obstacle to the adoption of this new biological solution. The research-based knowledge generated through the project on ASD will be disseminated via local, regional, and national level Extension activities (on-farm demonstrations, field days, presentations at growers' meetings, in-service training, seminars, webinars), along with the publication of educational material (fact-sheets, newsletters, magazine, and research articles), contributing to the transfer of ASD principals and practical application to organic specialty crop growers as a sustainable weed management strategy.
Animal Health Component
60%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
20%
Applied
60%
Developmental
20%
Goals / Objectives
The primary project goal is to increase the profitability and sustainability of organic specialty crop production systems and to facilitate the transition from conventional to organic production practices by optimizing and integrating the use of Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation (ASD) as a biological weed management tactic in specialty crops systemswhile promoting soil health.The specific objectives proposed are to:1) Optimize and evaluate the efficacy of ASD as a biological solution for the management of weeds in organic and transitioning to organic specialty crops systems representative of the U.S. Northeast and Southeast.2) Evaluate the impact of ASD applied using alternative organic amendments on soil ecology and microbiome dynamics and seed-associated microbiome in organic and transitioning to organic specialty crops systems examining the effect on nutrient dynamics and overall soil health.3) Investigate the mechanism of weed suppression using targeted and non-targeted soil metabolomic analysis techniques.4) Evaluate the economic viability and identify barriers to the adoption and integration of ASD in organic and transitioning to organic specialty crop systems.5) Conduct on-farm ASD demonstrations for weed management and a range of outreach activities employing multiple extension delivery methods to transfer science-based knowledge on ASD and promote its adoption for the management of weeds while promoting soil health in organic and transitioning to organic specialty crop systems.
Project Methods
Coordinated research and on-farm demonstration trials will be conducted to optimize and integrate Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation (ASD) into organic specialty crop systems and evaluate the efficacy of ASD in suppressing key weed species in Florida and Pennsylvania, two states representative of the U.S. Northeast and Southeast region.A set of trials will be conducted under controlled environment, protected environment, and field conditions. A coordinated pot-in-pot study will be conducted under controlled environmental conditions following the same protocol in PA (at the Penn State Greenhouse Facilities) and FL (at the US Horticultural Research Laboratory Greenhouse Facilities). Using soils representative of each state (sandy for FL and heavier/clayey soil for PA) and targeting weed species that represent critical issues in each state (including some that are an issue in both states), alternative C sources characterized by different C:N ratios like sugarcane molasses, wheat middlings, spent brewery grain, or soybean meal will be tested and applied at different rates to assess their efficacy in suppressing different weed species under controlled conditions in comparison to the untreated control.A field study will be conducted at the Penn State Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs, PA to compare the effect of selected ASD treatments on "organic certified" and "conventional land transitioning to organic production" side-by-side under the same environmental conditions. The field ASD treatment application will be conducted in the spring season on raised beds testing the best two treatments identified through the pot study, combined or not with over-wintering cover crop residues of 2-3 species (including species like triticale, crimson clover, snow pea, canola, or daikon radish) mix. An untreated control and cover crop by itself, will be compared to the ASD treatments on organic and conventional land transitioning to organic production. This study will allow us to evaluate the efficacy of ASD against spring weeds.A high tunnel study will be conducted at the Penn State Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs, PA to compare the effect of selected organic amendments characterized by different C:N ratios as ASD C sources on "organic certified" land. The high tunnel ASD study will be conducted in the fall with a flat-bed application, using a silage tarp as TIF, to test the efficacy of the ASD treatment on fall/winter weeds in a fall/winter cropping system.For all the studies weed seed decay over time under different ASD treatments with the mesh bag method. In this method, a known quantity of weed propagules is placed inside polyethylene mesh bags mixed with the media of interest and then buried with soil. After pre-determined time intervals, the propagules will be recovered to quantify decay.The impact of ASD on soil and weed seed-associated microbial communities will be assessed in samples from each trial. These assessments will be carried out for each experiment to profile changes in soil microbial communities (microbiome) across ASD treatments. Data on the soil microbiome will be correlated with the respective soil environmental parameters and nutrient data across systems and locations. For the same studies, we will evaluate the effects of the ASD treatment on the nutrient dynamics. Plant growth will be monitored and at harvest, biometric assessments will be conducted measuring yield and quality components. Fresh and dry biomasswill be measured along with leaf area and dry matter content. Oven-dried samples will be milled and analyzed for their mineral profile (P, K, Ca, Mg, S, Na, Fe, B, Cu, Mn, Zn) and total N.To better understand the role that known and other unknown metabolites generated during the ASD treatment may play in the suppression of weeds, starting in the second year of the project, samples of soil collected from the pot-in-pot experiments will be analyzed for the content of organic acids, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other potentially unknown metabolites using chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques as well as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy.Standard enterprise budget templates will be used to collect yield data, produce sale prices, and standard production costs along with costs associated with ASD from open field and high tunnel experiments.The research-based knowledge generated through the project on ASD will be disseminated via local, regional, and national level Extension activities (on-farm demonstrations, field days, presentations at growers' meetings, in-service training, seminars, webinars), along with the publication of educational material (fact-sheets, newsletters, magazine, and research articles), contributing to the transfer of ASD principals and practical application to organic specialty crop growers as a sustainable weed management strategy.An external evaluation of the results and outcomes of the project activities will be solicited through the grower's surveys on the occasion of workshops, presentations, and webinars. Once the project is funded, a project Advisory Board will be formed including at least one organic grower, one extension educator, and a representative of the professional grower associations or private industry who will be invited to one of the monthly meetings to discuss the yearly progress of the project and receive feedback on the work done and the activities planned. The success of the project will be evaluated also considering: i) the number of research goals achieved and the number of peer-reviewed publications produced for the Research component; ii) the number of Extension articles, presentations, and activities generated/conducted through the project and the number of downloads/participants recorded for the Extension component; and iii) the number of undergraduate and graduate students trained/exposed to the project and the number of guest lectures and outreach activities conducted for the Education component of the project.