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Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture
With its ability to reduce both weed pressure and water demand, plasticulture has established a solid foothold among home and market gardeners alike – but it’s not without its drawbacks.
For one thing, plasticulture doesn’t combat insect pests. Each season’s end, it also sends a sizeable load of non-recyclable plastic waste to the landfill. Now, new research is suggesting a way around both of those obstacles to a more sustainable system of plasticulture.
Researchers in Brazil have developed a biodegradable film that can be used as a mulching sheet, providing similar water retention and weed suppression benefits to polyethylene plastic without the added waste.
The research team also found a way to incorporate pest control, by treating the biodegradable film with citronella oil. They hypothesized that the natural insect repellent would reduce pest damage to crops.
In both lab and greenhouse experiments, the researchers compared strawberry plants grown with 1) no mulch, 2) plastic mulch, and 3) the new biodegradable mulch. The biodegradable mulch treatments included both a no-citronella control, and one treated with citronella oil.
The scientists measured the effect of the citronella by counting the number of silverleaf whitefly eggs on the strawberry plants in each treatment. As expected, they found an average of six whitefly eggs on plants protected by citronella-treated biodegradable mulch, versus thirty or more eggs per plant in the unprotected treatments.
The study was published in the journal Agricultural Science & Technology.
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