Weed infestation and potato yielding under the conditions of diversified tillage operations.

A three-year field experiment was conducted in the years 2002-2004 at the Experimental Farm at Zawady owned by the University of Podlasie to evaluate an effect of soil tillage and weed control methods including herbicides and their mixtures on weed infestation and yielding of edible potato cv. Wiking. It was found that soil tillage methods significantly differentiated the potato tuber total yield, weed number determined at the onset and the end of vegetation and weed air dry matter before closing of potato rows. Compared with the control treatment where weeds were mechanically controlled, increased weed control intensity (including herbicides) significantly reduced weed infestation, which was followed by significantly increased tuber total yield by 2.17 to 5.56 t ha -1 and the share of commercial fraction of tubers yield in the total yield excluding variant 5 in which a single herbicide, (that is Barox 460 SL) was applied.