Can you imagine the confusion on the local's faces when they see my Strawberry setup for this season?....  People stop their cars all day long and jump out to ask why we have done this. The answer is very simple in that we don't want weeds between our rows and we also don't want to spray any toxic chemicals anywhere in our farm. I just wish there was a way to avoid the use of plastic too when growing commercially.

 

 

My California home is in Santa Cruz county, a big strawberry production area.  There are acres and acres of plastic weed control everywhere you look. I hate it because it is so unnatural and ugly and not a "sustainable" practice with the petrochemical based plastics.  But I sympathize with the challenge of weed control.  

 

In Watsonville they do it a little differently, leaving the furrow bottom open for tractor wheels, tillage and irrigation, just covering the hardest-to-weed planted area on top. 

 

I've never been a commercial grower, but because of my plant health care - IPM business and interest in organic growing, I attended a UC/county ag program on organic strawberry production and learned a lot about alternatives to Methyl Bromide fumigation for soil borne fungal disease, etc.  But the only alternative to chemical or plastic weed control discussed is hand weeding. Labor is cheap enough here, can that be considered? 

 

There are some options in the US with bio-degradable organic program compatible herbicides, but I don't know if any are available yet in Thailand.

They are contact only, not systemic.  Active Ingredient: Ammoniated soap of fatty acids

http://www.certisusa.com/pest_management_products/herbicide/final-san-o.htm

 

 https://jhawkins54.typepad.com/files/organic_strawberry_production-peterson.pdf

Methyl Bromide, gives me the horrors. 3 seconds dermal ingestion and your dead meat standing( from my studies in horticulture ).

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26 minutes ago, scubastephen said:

Methyl Bromide, gives me the horrors. 3 seconds dermal ingestion and your dead meat standing( from my studies in horticulture ).

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It has been banned for commercial use in California for good reason.  And therefore made it necessary for grower to learn about less toxic options for soil borne diseases.