Flaming in Spanish onion

Maryse L. Leblanc¹, Daniel C. Cloutier², Evan Sivesind³, Katrine Stewart⁴ and Philippe Séguin⁴

Abstract
Flaming can be done pre and post emergence and has been proven effective on a wide variety of crops. Propane flaming kills weeds by increasing cell temperature for a fraction of second which is sufficient to disrupt the cell wall and denature the proteins, thereby killing the cells and eventually the plant.

An experiment was conducted in 2005 and 2006 to determine transplanted Spanish onion and weed susceptibility to propane flaming under Canadian conditions. The experiment involved 62 treatments: five onion stages, four tractor speeds and three rates of propane and a handweeding and a weedy check.

In the first flaming, the second week after transplanting the onion, the two slowest speeds at the highest propane rate had a significantly lower yield than the control. The yield was not significantly affected by any of the other treatments, and at any of the other dates.

In general, lamb's-quarters repression decreased as the tractor speed increased and increased as the propane dose increased. The percentage of lamb's-quarters control decreased as its growth stages were more advanced. Less than 50% of control was obtained when it was at a stage greater than 6 leaves. Spanish onions appear to be very tolerant to flaming.


Source
2007 Guelph Organic Conference, Natural Sciences Symposium


Author Locations & Affiliations
(1) Researcher, Institut de recherche et de développement en agroenvironnement, Saint-Hyacinthe, QC, Canada J2S 7B8
(2) Researcher, Institut de malherbologie, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada H9X 3R9
(3) Graduate student, McGill University, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada H9X 3R9
(4) Professor, McGill University, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada H9X 3R9


en français


Posted February 2007