Poblaciones de lombrices bajo seis estrategias de manejo de malezas en una plantación de banano.

Abstract

Six weed managementstrategies were established in with banana plantation; in SanPablo, a farm located in the Atlantic region of Costa Rica.Since then, earthworm counts have been performed at regularintervals. Weed management strategies consisted of: 1-unweeded control. 2- Hand weeded control at monthlyintervals. 3- Glyphosate (Ranger Plus-680 g/kg; at 0.687%w/v) applications at eight week intervals. 4- Paraquat(Gramoxone-200 g/l, at 0.75% v/v) at monthly intervals. 5-Glufosinate (Finale-150 g/l, at 1% v/v) applications at eightweek intervals. 6- Monitored treatment, depending ondetected weeds, only in the area of maximum weed-cropinterference. Earthworms were counted, at each samplingtime, from four 15625 cm3 soil samples of each plot. Sampleswere taken from different microhabitats, including soilcovered with Paspalum conjugatum; soil covered withPanicum zizanoides; soil covered with banana residues(leaves, pseudo-stems) and bare soil. Soil samples from sitescovered with banana residues or Paspalum conjugatumshowed the highest earthworm counts, followed by soilcovered with Panicum zizanoides and bare soil. A directeffect of weed management strategies on earthworm numberhas not been detected.