This study is part of our effort to explore the use of weeds to provide food and shelter for beneficial insects. We wanted to determine if bean yield is the same in gardens that were weeded for first for four weeks and in gardens that were weeded for 8 weeks after planting.
·
Gardeners planted two plots of
· One plot, called Weeded 4, was weeded for the first 4 weeks after sowing.
· The second plot, called Weeded 8, was weeded for 8 weeks (the entire growing season).
· The gardeners weeded the plots at 2-week interval and recorded the time it took them to weed each plot.
· Nine weeks after planting, they recorded the total weight of the snap beans for each plot.
What did the gardeners find?
· The snap bean yield for Weeded 8 was 1 ˝ times greater than the yield of plants in the Weeded 4 treatment. Figure 1
· Yield between gardeners vary greatly.
What is the bottom line?
· Thus far, the 2001 results suggest that gardeners should weed their snap bean garden on a regular basis to obtain greater yields.
· Large variation between gardeners makes it important for us to repeat the experiment one more year.
· However, we cannot yet recommend weeding your snap beans garden on a regular basis. This experiment must be conducted one more year to confirm or reject the 2001 results.
Volunteers are needed to conduct this experiment one
more year to confirm the 2001 results.
The experiment was conducted to determine the ability of the floating row cover to control insect pest of squash early in the growing season to obtain greater yields.
· Each gardener planted two plots of Black Beauty zucchini.
· One plot was covered with a floating row cover until flowering and the other remained not covered.
· The gardeners monitored cucumber beetles, squash bugs and vine borer hole numbers in each plot on a two-week schedule.
· They recorded the number of squash per plant on a weekly basis.
What is the bottom line?
This year’s result indicates that the row cover did not prevent or delay the onset of wilt to obtain higher yield. We conclude that the influx of insect pests occurred after floating row covers were removed. Therefore, the insect pests caused the same amount of damage to both plots. Further studies will be conducted to see how well floating row covers work when kept on the zucchini plants during the entire growing season.
Volunteers are needed
to conduct this experiment one more year to confirm the 2001 results.
Cabbage Sugar Spray Experiment
The purpose of the sugar spray experiment was to determine if sugar sprays would attract natural enemies that would feed or parasitize the cabbage worms and therefore provide control of the pest.
The sugar-water spray did attract some natural enemies onto the plants, but the gardeners did not observe a decrease in the number of cabbage worms nor an increase in the yield. Further studies will be designed to further investigate the effect of the sugar-water spray the natural enemies that may attack the cabbage worms.
Volunteers are needed
to conduct this experiment one more year to confirm the 2001 results.
The purpose of the experiment was to determine if releasing lacewing eggs on the cabbage plants would decrease the number of cabbage worms.
Our test showed that the lacewing eggs rolled off the cabbage leaf onto the ground. If the lacewing eggs were able to hatch on the ground, our failure to find lacewing larvae on treated plants suggest that these predators probably went looking for a meal elsewhere. This study will be modified next year by releasing lacewing larvae on the cabbage plants.
Volunteers are needed to conduct this experiment to
investigate if releasing lacewing larvae can provide acceptable control of the
cabbage worm.
