We’re proudly celebrating this year’s National Ag Day. Farmers and our ag communities are the backbone of our country. So much of what we eat, use, or wear every day is provided by agriculture.
We at TriEst Ag Group, a TriCal Group company, celebrate our farmers and are proud to be helping to create sustainable ag practices. We believe in functional sustainability and we define functional sustainability as helping growers reach both their financial and regenerative agriculture goals. It all starts with healthy soil.
Healthy soils lead to healthier plants that produce higher quality harvests. Ground-breaking information and new studies can be found at our new AgHub. https://tricalgroup.com/aghub/
So today let’s all celebrate agriculture and thank all of the people who work hard to feed the world, look after crops and livestock, and contribute to agricultural production.
Building off of our traditional success in tobacco and our more recent watermelon results in 2020-2021, we wanted to trial our low rate system in another crop that fit the specifications outlined earlier; 60-120 day crop, high value, not currently being fumigated as a standard practice. An opportunity was found in Florida with fresh market green beans. After reviewing the economics of green bean production in this region and considering the chloropicrin rate ranges we had seen increased vigor/yields in other crops, the following protocol was set for the trial:
Evaluate 85# broadcast (25# BER) and 130# broadcast (40# BER) on fresh market green bean
Fumigation was applied bare-ground with a single application shank at a 6” depth while stacking a 12” bed at application. The grower followed this by double bedding immediately following the fumigation pass to increase stack from 12” to 15-18”, resulting in a final application depth of 21-24”. At planting, the bed is knocked down to an 8-10” pressed bed that’s prepared for direct seeding. This results in seed being planted directly into the fumigated zone.
The results of this study were very successful. The crop vigor and uniformity were significantly better in fumigated treatments and had a direct correlation to rate. Both rates resulted in better seed germination, larger root systems, uniform plant populations and enhanced growth versus non-fumigated. Yield results were the following:
The results of this study are quite drastic, but this work was done in a heavily cropped system in tight rotations. This project was in the third rotation of green bean on this farm, with no previous fumigation on that specific crop and grower standard yields were below average. With that said, we’ve drawn the following conclusions and thoughts:
Chloropicrin has the potential to maintain higher than average yields in multiple cropping cycles of green bean
Consistent emergence and uniform growth resulted in more yield bearing plants per acre and harvest efficiency
Future projects will focus on fresh rotations in both Fall and Spring, to determine ideal timing of applications and efficient use of Chloropicrin
We hope you continue with us on our low rate trial journey. Sign-up for our blogs today to keep up.
To learn more about what soil fumigation can do in your fields contact a sales rep in your area by clicking here.
