COBERTURA MORTA NO CULTIVO DE ALFACE

Abstract

Organic agriculture plays a major role in the production of vegetables that are present in people's daily lives. Often this work is done using organic agriculture. In this management, chemical products are not used and alternative pest control methods are needed. and disease, weeds are a big problem in any crop and mulching can be a management control. In the present work, different soil coverings were used: banana leaf, grass pruning, maize straw, sawdust and the unchecked control to verify weed suppression power during the critical period of lettuce competition. A phytosociological survey was performed to verify the weeds present in the area and to calculate the Relative Frequency, Relative Density, Relative Abundance and Importance Value Index of each species. The presence of five weed species from four botanical families was observed. The lettuce had the head diameter and number of leaves measured and evaluated by the Tukey test at 5% significance. The coverings: banana leaf, grass and corn straw obtained the best results, presenting lower values for weed quantity and higher values for head diameter, and number of lettuce leaves.