Corn Gluten Meal Applicator for Weed Control in Organic Vegetable Production

Abstract

Abstract Producers of organic vegetables often report that weeds are their most troublesome production problem. Corn gluten meal (CGM), a by-product of the wet-milling process of corn, is phytotoxic. As a preemergence or preplant-incorporated herbicide, CGM inhibits root development, decreases shoot length, and reduces plant survival of weed or crop seedlings. The development of a mechanized application method for CGM and the ability to apply the material in a banded pattern would increase its use in organic vegetable production, especially in direct-seeded vegetables. The objective was to develop a mechanized method to uniformly apply CGM to the soil surface in either a solid (broadcast) or banded pattern. An applicator was assembled using various machinery components (fertilizer box, rotating agitator blades, 12-volt motor, and fan-shaped, gravity-fed, row-banding applicators). The equipment was evaluated for the application of two CGM formulations (powdered and granulated), three application rates (250...