In addition to the intended effects on weeds, mechanical weed control may a
lso cause some negative side effects such as physical damage of crop plants
. Positive side effects, however, may occur with respect to the improvement
of soil structure.
Aim of the present study was to quantify positive and negative side effects
of mechanical control in the vegetable crops carrots, onions and cauliflow
er. Averaged over all control treatments, plant losses due to the tested tr
eatments occurred up to 4 %, ridging and tine harrow treatments ranged some
what below the average. Yields of mechanically controlled crops ranged betw
een 82 and 111 %, with an average of 97 % of the untreated control.