With the five-year IWMPRAISE project (Integrated Weed Management: Practical implementation solutions for Europe) due to end this November, members have been busy, staging a mini-symposium in Athens the day before June’s European Weed Research Society (EWRS) symposium, presenting its work at the latter event, and producing useful tools for those involved in weed management.
These tools include an English version of a game designed to encourage the acquisition of knowledge on weed control in perennial crops (a version for annual crops is already available), a new guide to the project’s experimental trials across Europe and a video focusing on the major reduction of herbicide use in maize crops.
IWMPRAISE took advantage of the presence of international weed specialists in Athens to stage the mini-symposium, presenting the barriers to and benefits of Integrated Weed Management tools and tactics to reduce the dependence of European agriculture on herbicides. At the subsequent EWRS symposium, IWMPRAISE members made oral and poster presentations (for more details follow @IwmPraise on Twitter).
IWMPRAISE’s new perennial crop game was presented at the EWRS symposium by ACTA’s Philippe Delval, who has been using it in his native France as part of the country’s training the trainers programme.
The IWMPRAISE website explains: “The objective of the game is to present all the methods to manage and control weeds in the context of a perennial crop. Production indicators (yield and quality) but also impact indicators (water quality, agronomic quality of the soil, toxicity, soil fauna) make it possible to compare each of the solutions to be implemented.
“The type of soil is chosen initially but the weather is random and influences the evolution of five groups of weeds and the possibility of implementing methods. The players are limited in money over the duration of the game and in time on each of the six periods which represent a rotation of two crops.
“The winner of the game must therefore both ensure a certain production output while having a minimum impact on the environment and applicator health.”
The game (pictured right) comprises a number of PDF files which can be downloaded from the project website and printed (preferably in colour). These files are the rules (facilitators should be familiar with these before introducing the game to players), a game board to track the course of the game, including weather and weed dynamics, a player board for each player and cards for a range of potential weed management measures and their characteristics (price, efficacy, toxicity etc) and a second set of cards covering weather scenarios, soil types and different types of annual crops.
The project is keen to get feedback from players and encourages those interested in translating the game into local languages or local cropping systems to contact Philippe.
The 250-page 2022 final edition of Experimental Trials in Europe, which can also be downloaded from the IPMPRAISE website, covers the massive range or experimental work conducted by the project. This work has covered major crops across eight countries (Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Slovenia, The Netherlands and United Kingdom).
Some of this work has seen the same theme tackled in different environments, for example, weed management for the transition phase from conventional to conservation agriculture in Italy and Denmark, and the biological control of Rumex obtusifolius (broad-leaved dock) in Slovenia and Switzerland. Other work has focused on more local problems (though lessons can, of course, be learned for other situations), such as an innovative approach to the control of black-grass in winter barley in the UK and cover cropping in the Chianti vineyards of Italy.
Italian researchers have also produced a video, available on YouTube, revealing two or three moves to “checkmate” maize herbicides. These moves make it possible to reduce herbicide use by 70%. Relying on the use of tractors with semi-automatic driving systems and innovative hoeing machinery, the moves comprise precision sowing, possibly combined with pre-emergence band-spraying, early hoeing combined with post-emergence band-spraying after scouting, and late hoeing with post-emergence band-spraying when necessary or as an alternative to early hoeing depending on climatic and agronomic conditions.
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