ECOLOGICAL LEEK GROWING WITH PLASTIC

The experiments with soil-mulching on leek over the last three years have shown consistently that a white mulch yields better results than a black one.

Mulching does not in itself result in better plant quality or weight as compared with nonmulched parcels, but its advantages are mainly of an ecological nature, more in particular the exclusion of weed control and the reduction of fertilizer draining and thus of soil and groundwater eutrophication.

With respect to the anti-thrips gauze covering we were able to show that it should be applied already from the seedbed (from April).

On the production field a plant covering against thrips from planting out on 1 July till 23 November 92 resulted in a very efficient protection of the leek crop; when it was carried out with a UV-stabilized PE antithrips gauze with meshes of 0.17 x 0.37 mm (Lankhorst).

We obtained indications that a non-woven polypropylene sheet (PP) also offers some possibilities.
However, the AGRYL P-10-membrane (Sodoca) that we used tended to get perforated by the pointed leek leaves.

The use of gauzes results in a loss of plant weight that is directly proportional to the smaller transparence of the films.

VII International Symposium on Timing Field Production of Vegetables

F. Benoit, N. Ceustermans

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1994.371.33