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Using silage tarps for weed control

An associate professor of weed science at Purdue University says specialty crop growers have another option for weed control.

Steven Meyers says silage tarps aren’t just for dairy farmers.

“Essentially, small vegetable farmers have started to use them either as a stale seed bed application or for cover crop termination or for early season weed management in something like carrots,” he says. “They work by blocking sunlight and without sunlight the weeds die.”

He tells Brownfield it can be cost effective.

“We plant seed pieces, seed potatoes, place the tarps and remove them about 3 weeks later,” he says. “We find that it provides excellent early season weed management. We remove the tarp, we have potatoes coming up and there’s no weeds, so that that gives our crop a jump start.”

He says growers can also reuse tarps for cover crop termination on small farming operations.

Brownfield interviewed Meyers at the Midwest Mechanical Weed Control Field Day in Lafayette, Indiana.