Status of the work in WP4, the Slovenian National Cluster
June 2018
The framework for weed control strategies that were planned for the field sesason 2018 was mainly discussed allready at the first meeting of the national cluster and fine tunned in the upcoming winter months. Availability of equipment and regional conditions were taken into account in initial planing of the weed control strategies. Slovenian national cluster agreed on band spraying and reduced herbicide application combined with mechanical weeding, which will be compared to standard early post broadcast herbicide application in maize production. The weather conditions in the spring 2018 were extremely hard, therefore a lot of effort was invested in preparing the soil for maize planting, which was performed on 30 April 2018. Beside experiments based on the national cluster protocol, additional preliminary testing of cover crop termination and strip-till systems were also executed this season.
Due to wet conditions, mechanical weed control with camera guided finger weeder was performed very late.
Roller crimper developed from slovenian cluster partner Gorenc was preliminary tested for termination of cover crop.
Strip-till system was also tested in maize production after 1. cut of Italian ryegrass in begining of May 2018.
Maize allready in two-leaf stage just 2 weeks after strip-till planting. Ryegrass was terminated with glyphosate one day after planting.
