- Author: Zheng Wang
- Posted by: Gale Perez
From page 26 of the Progressive Crop Consultant (March/April 2022) magazine.
Zheng Wang is the UC Cooperative Extension Vegetable Crops and Irrigation Advisor for Stanislaus County.
Evaluating the potential of Pyridate-containing herbicide in basil: impacts on yield, leaf injury, and weed control
Introduction
Basil is one of the most important herb spices for the diets of people in the Central Valley. Commercial basil in California is usually grown without the use of any herbicide after seedling emergence due to the lack of registered post-emergence herbicides. Most application occurs at pre-plant or immediately after seeding using a pre-emergence herbicide. ‘Devrinol', a selective pre-emergence herbicide containing Napropamide as the active ingredient, was the only registered herbicide that has been used over the past 20 years. Consequently, growers have to deal with potential weed resistance and deploy tremendous amount of labor for hand removal if pre-emergence effects fail or decrease later in the season. In addition to the labor cost for hand harvest, the input of manual weed removal significantly increases the total production cost. Therefore, screening existing but currently unregistered post-emergence herbicides and collecting their performance on weed suppression and plant injury will facilitate the use registration and help basil growers with more choices for post-emergence chemical weed control and the labor cost reduction for manual weeding.
In 2021, I conducted two herbicide evaluation trials on commercial basil fields of Ratto Bros, Inc. in Modesto, California (37.687312, -121.192401 and 37.679212, -121.142669) with the collaboration of IR-4. The purpose is to understand if two Pyridate-containing herbicides, ‘Tough 5EC' and ‘Pyridate 30WG', perform consistently on weed control and prevention of basil leaf injury. Tough 5EC and Pyridate 30WG are currently used on field corn, chickpea, and mints but are not registered for use on basil. They both have the active ingredient of Pyridate (Carbonothioic acid, O-(6-chloro-3-phenyl-4-pyridizinyl) S-octyl ester)and are contact herbicides within Group 6. They are post-emergence herbicides for the selective control or suppression of actively growing annual broadleaf species. The active ingredient of Pyridate is absorbed by plant leaves. Neither offers any residual weed control. Therefore, weeds must have emerged at the time of spray and not grown beyond the proper application stage to prevent decrease of control.
For the complete article, see page 26 in the Progressive Crop Consultant (March/April 2022) magazine.
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- Posted by: Gale Perez
With COVID-19, we've had to skip hosting in-person field day events and come up with creative ways to extend research results and information.
Here's Zheng Wang (UC Cooperative Extension Vegetable Crops Advisor in Stanislaus County) taking us on a field walk to discuss his research projects which include weed management in basil [VIDEO].
More information on Zheng's research can be found at http://cestanislaus.ucanr.edu/Agriculture/Vegetable_Crops/.
- Author: Dustin Blakey
Basil is one of my favorite things to grow in the garden. It's easy, mostly pest-free, and best of all: I like it.
I usually go overboard and grow more than one kind of basil in the garden. This year I grew sweet basil, Thai basil, and ‘Mammoth' lettuce-leaf basil.
If you don't raise lettuce-leaf basil, you should consider it for next year. Lettuce-leaf basil is really fast to de-stem for processing which is great for lazy folks like me. ‘Napoletano' is my absolute favorite basil, but it was out-of-stock everywhere this year, so mild-tasting ‘Mammoth' it was.
Although I use fresh basil regularly, I never seem to make a huge dent in my garden's supply because I grow more than I should. Eventually the plants will begin to flower around mid-July. Each type of basil flowers at a different time and previous harvesting will also affect when it flowers.
An efficient time to harvest basil is just as the flower spikes begin to be visible, but aren't fully expanded. The plants will have lots of leaves ready to be used and the flavor is still good.
Today was basil harvest day in my garden, but I probably should have started last week.
I usually dry all my sweet basil, and use the Thai and lettuce-leaf basils fresh, but this year I had a lot of lettuce-leaf basil ready to harvest all at once so I had to preserve some. After drying and freezing, I still had some left to use up. So I went to my backup preservation plan: salt drying.
Salt drying relies on salt to draw out moisture to preserve herbs. Since there is no heat involved, the delicate aroma of the herbs is not as affected as by dehydrating. Any herb can be salt dried, but I'm not sure that's a good idea for every herb. I can't imagine finding a use for salted mint.
To salt dry basil, use a clean, wide-mouth jar. Put some salt in the bottom and alternate layers of washed, dried basil leaves and salt. I use kosher salt, but use whatever suits your fancy. (Remember, the basil will overpower any flavor subtleties of expensive specialty salts.) Sometimes I put a few peppercorns or fennel seed in the salt too. After filling the jar, store it in the refrigerator and it will keep for months.
Whenever you need some basil, pull out some leaves and add them to your recipe, adjusting salt if desired. When you are finished using all the leaves, you are left with a basil-flavored salt, also handy in the kitchen!
I've found that this method is very good with Thai or holy basils. I can pull the leaves out and add them to sauces. They do a good job retaining their distinct flavor this way. The small leaves fit well into the jar to make neat layers. This year I used the small leaves toward the top of my lettuce-leaf basil plants. The ruffles made it a little harder to place into the salt, but it worked if I packed it all down between each layer. I probably didn't get as much basil in the jar as with Thai basil as a result.
I am thankful that basil is so easy to preserve since I'm always swimming in it by mid-summer. Good thing it's something I actually use, unlike the radishes I plant for no apparent reason.
P.S. Before you ask: No you cannot safely can basil at home, even with a pressure canner.
- Author: Zheng Wang
The purpose of this research is to collect performance data to support registration of sulfentrazone herbicides on basil. Leafy green and culinary herb growers are affected by a limited number of herbicides, resulting in tremendous manual weed removal. Therefore, screening existing preemergent herbicides and collecting their performance on weed control will help with their registration to provide California leafy green and herb growers more choices for chemical weed suppression and save labor cost for manual weeding.
This research is sponsored by the Western IR-4 and collaborated with Ratto Bros, Inc. in Modesto, CA. Two separate fields were seeded with four basil cultivars (‘Passion,' ‘Obsession,' ‘Devotion,' and ‘Helena') on April 12 and May 7, respectively. Zeus XC (active ingredient: sulfentrazone) was soil-applied the next day after seeding at rates of 4, 6, and 8 oz./acre, respectively. The herbicide, Devrinol, was applied at 2.5 lb./acre as the grower's standard practice.
Starting on day 7 (1 week after seeding), an area of 4 sq. ft. (2 ft. x 2 ft.) was framed and pictured from each treatment with-in a replication on a weekly basis until day 70 (10 weeks after seeding) and day 63 (9 weeks after seeding) for fields seeded on April 12 and May 7, respectively. Crop injury and weed control were evaluated every two weeks, and fresh weight was measured on June 28 and July 12. Data analysis is underway. The following photos and graphs demonstrate the development of trials and preliminary treatment effect on crop injury and fresh weight. In Field 2 (seeded on May 7), crop injury and fresh biomass reduction are the most severe for plots sprayed at 8 oz. per acre for all cultivars; whereas this treatment effect was not detected in Field 1 (seeded on April 12). Statistical analysis is being conducted and will provide treatment comparisons later.
This article was originally published in the UC Weed Science blog.
- Author: Zheng Wang
- Posted by: Gale Perez
The purpose of this research is to collect performance data to support registration of sulfentrazone herbicides on basil. Leafy green and culinary herb growers are affected by a limited number of herbicides, resulting in tremendous manual weed removal. Therefore, screening existing preemergent herbicides and collecting their performance on weed control will help with their registration to provide California leafy green and herb growers more choices for chemical weed suppression and save labor cost for manual weeding.
This research is sponsored by the Western IR-4 and collaborated with Ratto Bros, Inc. in Modesto, CA. Two separate fields were seeded with four basil cultivars (‘Passion,' ‘Obsession,' ‘Devotion,' and ‘Helena') on April 12 and May 7, respectively. Zeus XC (active ingredient: sulfentrazone) was soil-applied the next day after seeding at rates of 4, 6, and 8 oz./acre, respectively. The herbicide, Devrinol, was applied at 2.5 lb./acre as the grower's standard practice.
Starting on day 7 (1 week after seeding), an area of 4 sq. ft. (2 ft. x 2 ft.) was framed and pictured from each treatment with-in a replication on a weekly basis until day 70 (10 weeks after seeding) and day 63 (9 weeks after seeding) for fields seeded on April 12 and May 7, respectively. Crop injury and weed control were evaluated every two weeks, and fresh weight was measured on June 28 and July 12. Data analysis is underway. The following photos and graphs demonstrate the development of trials and preliminary treatment effect on crop injury and fresh weight. In Field 2 (seeded on May 7), crop injury and fresh biomass reduction are the most severe for plots sprayed at 8 oz. per acre for all cultivars; whereas this treatment effect was not detected in Field 1 (seeded on April 12). Statistical analysis is being conducted and will provide treatment comparisons later.
Zheng Wang is the UC Cooperative Extension Vegetable Advisor in Stanislaus County. You can contact him at zzwwang@ucanr.edu or (209) 525-6822.