Focus Group for:

Docks (and other perennials)


Group Aims:
This focus group will concentrate on developing an understanding of dock management in organic farming systems by monitoring existing practice, by compiling and disseminating existing knowledge, and by practical experimental work. As knowledge is gathered it is hoped that the remit of the group will be widened to include other troublesome perennial weeds.

Group Role:
• steer direction of work on the theme of Docks and Other Perennials
• reach a consensus on work to be undertaken over the course of the project
• provide feedback on trial designs and results
• decide future work programme based on each years results

Principle issues to be addressed:
• general questions on population dynamics of docks/perennial weeds
• what are proven management (best) practices?
• how to evaluate various interventions (timing, labour demand, farming system type)
• a general questioning of policy?

Working Approaches:
1. Survey of Successes and Failures: through targeted interviews and questionnaires on docks (to tie in with work in other groups) in order to attempt to answer the questions “what is success?” and “are there common threads in successful strategies?” This process might suggest avenues for research and a tentative list of “do’s and don’ts” for dock and perennials control which could be disseminated on farm walks, demonstration plots and on the stakeholder day at the end of the season, and possibly a booklet and/or poster.

» See the Case studies
 

2. Monitoring: data will also be gathered as part of the survey information and also as part of the trials programme in this respect and will depend on analysis of feedback from these activities. It should help answer the questions posed above and to develop a simple more quantitative scale that could give a less subjective measure of intervention against weeds. The group felt that a relatively subjective assessment of whether weeds were increasing or decreasing from season to season would initially be adequate.

See Project Trials:
Expermient 1: Baseline monitoring of dock levels
Experiment 2: How long does it take to hand weed docks and how effective is it?
Experiment 9: Encouraging Gastrophysa viridula for dock management
 

3. Trials: validation trials will be carried out starting this season to complement the survey and get fieldwork underway. These would monitor the impact of current control strategies on farms (specifically covering docks this season) and also add some quantification to the monitoring strand. “Lazy dog” dock puller tools and the Swiss hot spear will be evaluated on a number of holdings through demonstrations and strip trials .

See Project Trials:
Expermient 1: Baseline monitoring of dock levels
Experiment 2: How long does it take to hand weed docks and how effective is it?
Experiment 9: Encouraging Gastrophysa viridula for dock management
 

4. Development work: will look into the possibility of using sites included in the DEFRA funded project ‘Cereal varieties for organic production’ to collect some data on docks as well as the possibilities for biological control of docks (using Chrysomelid beetles), the possible use allelopathic properties of cover or other crop plants (e.g. red clover, triticale, beet, etc.) and the efficacy of weed peppers as used by biodynamic farmers.

See Project Trials:
Expermient 7: Allelopathy
Experiment 9: Encouraging Gastrophysa viridula for dock management
Experiment 11: Weed peppers
 

Group Minutes and Documents:
More details on group remit, the discussions held by the group, including details of the budgets available can be downloaded as pdf files from the docks group documents pages.


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