Winter cover crops in no-tillage system whitout herbicides: effects on weed biomass and tomato yield

With the aim of eliminating herbicide use in notillage tomato production, an experiment was carried out to evaluate the best combination of winter cover crops for weed control and tomato production at the Ituporanga Experimental Station. Oat (Avena strigosa Schreb), vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) and fodder radish (Raphanus sativus L.) were grown in monoculture and in mixes. The tomato variety 'Marcia-EPAGRI' was stake-trained and grown under fertirrigation. The highest values in above-ground dry biomass were obtained by oat+vetch and oat monoculture, followed by vetch+radish, oat+radish, and oat+vetch+radish. Treatments with oats had the best performances in controlling resident vegetation, while vetch was associated with the worst performances. There were no significant differences between treatments for total yield and marketable fruit production.