Comparative analysis of alfalfa cultivation with and without herbicide use to gain insights into the potential for sustainable system development

Abstract

A major problem when establishing alfalfa crops can be the presence of weeds. In intensive systems, weeds are controlled with herbicides, which inevitably contaminate water, soil, air, and food. The work aimed to carry out a comparative analysis between the intensive system of alfalfa cultivation with herbicide use and the cultivation method without herbicide use in order to be able to make recommendations for the development of sustainable management systems in agriculture. A field trial was conducted at the experimental field of the Institute for Animal Husbandry, Zemun, Serbia, using a randomized block design with three replications and three treatments: control treatment (without herbicide application), treatment with bentazon and treatment with imazamox. The forage yield and hay yield in the first cut were significantly reduced in the treatments with herbicide application. The application of herbicides led to a significant reduction in weed biomass. The herbicides had different effects on individual weed species and their proportion in the total weed biomass. The application of herbicides gave no significant reduction in the number of weed species present. The number of weed species decreased over time due to the competitiveness of alfalfa. Under conditions of appropriate agrotechnics, the alfalfa crop can be established without using herbicides, which could be a good practice for sustainable farming systems. In this case, increased weed emergence can be expected in the first cut, which should be used carefully, and a reduction in weed levels can be expected with each subsequent cut.