ISHS Acta Horticulturae 255: III International Symposium on Soil Desinfestation
SOIL SOLARIZATION IN WEST-CAMEROON : EFFECT ON WEED CONTROL, SOME CHEMICAL PROPERTIES AND PATHOGENS OF THE SOIL |
| Author: | A. Daelemans |
| Abstract:
Solar heating of the soil is a simple, easy to teach to less trained farmers, technique for controlling weeds and soilborne pathogens. Therefore the effects of soil solarization were studied under local field conditions during the long dry season (3 months) in the main vegetables producing area of Cameroon. Also the combined effects of plowing in the previous crop, irrigation and soil tarping were investigated. Weeds, even the rhizome-forming ones like Imperata cylindrica were very well controlled by soil tarping with a transparent polyethylene sheet (0.03 mm) and this effect was maintained until complete covering of the soil by the next groundnut crop. Factorial analysis of the factors : soil tarping, addition of organic matter in the form of the previous crop and water revealed no significant difference (p=0.05) of the soil chemical properties : total nitrogen, N-nitrate, N-ammonium, total carbon, C/N ratio and pH. However the mean total mineral nitrogen content was higher in the tarped plots than in the uncovered ones [respectively 115.0 and 94.8 mg (N-nitrate + N-ammonium)/kg dry soil p=0.05]. The inoculum density of mainly Fusarium spp. was only reduced in the upper soil layers (0–2 cm) and the effect was independent of the previous culturing methods. A good reduction of the primary infection of the Cercospora leaf spot disease on groundnut was obtained in tarped soils and no interaction was found of addition of water and organic matter before soil covering. | |
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