Pest Evaluation in Sustainable Cabbage Production Systems

Abstract

Conservation tillage systems provide optimum conditions to reduce soil erosion and increase surface soil organic matter. This experiment was established with the long-term goal of developing conservation tillage systems that use either chemical inputs to produce vegetables and control pests, or legume cover crops, biological pesticides, and tillage to provide plant nutrition and control pests. The experiment consisted of cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. L. Capitata Group) grown by traditional-tillage (TT) or strip-tillage (ST) culture using either chemical or organic production methods for pest control. Cabbage heads were heavier with TT than with ST for the chemical production system. Although weed biomass was significantly higher with organic methods, there was a poor relationship between weed biomass at harvest and cabbage head weight. The lack of differences in lepidopterous pest damage suggests that the conservation tillage systems examined likely would not affect lepidopterous pest management systems using biological insecticides. Within tillage treatments, the organic production system resulted in less Alternaria infection than did the chemical production system. Since no fungicides were applied on any treatment, lower disease ratings in the organic production system may have been the result of reduced soil contact of the cabbage leaves from the increased soil coverage by the weed and intercropped legume canopy.