ASHS 2025 Conference

Nutrient and weed management are two of the biggest challenges in organic vegetable production systems. Anerobic soil disinfestation (ASD) is an effective method to manage the weeds and soil borne pathogens in organic production systems. In ASD, a carbon source is added to soil followed by watering to saturation and covering with plastic mulch to create anerobic soil conditions. Rendered animal and treated manure products have significant content of plant nutrients and carbon and can serve both as organic fertilizer and carbon source for ASD. A field experiment was conducted using three different carbon sources meat and bone meal (MBM; rendering product), MBM Sulfur and treated manure solids with objective to evaluate the effect of different carbon sources and their application rates on nutrient management and ASD in organic watermelon under traditional and novel charter next generation plastic mulch. We will be evaluating the treatment effect on soil cumulative anaerobicity, percent weed coverage, yellow nutsedge rhizome viability, plant vigor ratings, shoot and root biomass, periodic nutrient leaching, soil nitrogen and phosphorus content, plant tissue nutrient content (root and shoot), soil pH, soil C, N and P mineralization enzymes and soil microbial biomass. In results, MBM with sulfur at 150% recorded the highest cumulative anaerobicity and low weed coverage suggesting that it could be an excellent tool for soil nutrient management and weed control in organic production system.