Establishment of Asparagus with Living Mulch

Abstract

Experiments were begun in 1990 to determine the efficacy of using grassy and leguminous living mulches for asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.) establishment and production. Ten-week-old seedlings of hybrid asparagus, cv. Syn4-56 were planted in loamy sand in the irrigated Central Sands of Wisconsin. Treatments were unsuppressed living mulches of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.), Dutch white clover (Trifolium repens 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 mulch treatments. Asparagus fern growth with living mulches in year 1 was half that of asparagus grown with no mulch. Asparagus fern growth with clover and mixed mulches in year 2 averaged 75% of that grown without mulch. Fern growth with ryegrass mulch in year 2 was 50% of that grown 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 ryegrass mulch or by cultivation in the no-mulch plots