ESTABLISHMENT OF ASPARAGUS WITH LIVING MULCH

Experiments were begun in 1990 to determine the efficacy of using gras sy and leguminous living mulches for asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.) establishment and production. Ten-week-old seedlings of hybrid asp aragus, cv. Syn4-56, were planted in loamy sand in the irrigated Centr al Sands of Wiscnsin. Treatments were unsuppressed living mulches of p erennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.), Dutch white clover (Trifolium r epens L.), a mixture of ryegrass and clover, and a cultivated no-mulch control. A second variable, ammonium nitrate, banded at 40 and 80 lb N/acre, with a control of 0 lb N/acre, was factorially combined with m ulch treatments. Asparagus fern growth with living mulches in year 1 w as half that of asparagus grown with no mulch. Asparagus fern growth w ith clover and mixed mulches in year 2 averaged 75% of that grown with out mulch. Fern growth with ryegrass mulch in year 2 was 50% of that g rown with no mulch. Asparagus N uptake in clover and mixed mulch plots was as great as that grown with no mulch at each level of applied N. Weeds were controlled better by clover and mixed mulches than by ryegr ass mulch or by cultivation in the no-mulch plots.