SF 091: Strawberry: Evaluation of herbicides for use in bed systems

The principal findings were:

1. Dual Gold appears to be safe for use over strawberry beds and, subject to conditions on the SOLA (1389/10) could provide useful residual control of a range of weeds.
2. Goltix was safe applied over strawberry beds. It is currently approved for use post-harvest and could provide a useful alternative to Ramrod for short term residual control of groundsel. A low level of residue was detected in the fruit when tested at the higher rate pre-harvest – this use is not currently approved.
3. Currently approved herbicides Dow Shield and Devrinol did not give rise to residues when applied post-planting, pre-flowering over the plastic-mulched strawberry beds. Similarly Beetup did not give rise to residues. Beetup is not currently approved on strawberries but similar formulations of phenmedipham are approved.
4. Chikara was the most effective total herbicide for weed control between strawberry beds (Figs 1 and 2). It is approved for use on land not intended to bear vegetation. For strawberry crops, a SOLA would be required to allow use between plastic-mulched beds.
5. Shark was not as effective as Harvest for the control of strawberry runners between beds, but it was more effective than Reglone. No damage was seen on the mother plants in early spring even though the runners were not cut when sprayed in the autumn. Shark has good potential for use as an overall dormant season clean-up treatment in both bed and matted row strawberries provided a SOLA can be obtained for this use.

The expected deliverables from this project were to gather:

1) Information on the relative efficacy and crop safety of selected herbicides when used as alleyway or over-bed treatments for weed control during the growing season in strawberries,

2) Information about the level of chemical residues in fruit resulting from over-bed herbicide application to strawberries grown in plastic mulched beds,

3) Information on the relative efficacy and crop safety of Shark when used as a runner control treatment in the alleyways and as an overall dormant season treatment.