Alfred Palma, researcher at the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences of the University of Barcelona and technical director of the agricultural services company Agroserveis.cat, has received the XIII SEMh-PHYTOMA Award for the communication 'Integrated weed control management for organic rice production in the Ebro Delta'. The award was presented during the XVIII Congress of the Spanish Society of Malherbology, held in Mérida from April 26 to 29.
The work that received the SEMh-PHYTOMA Award, endowed with 900 euros, is part of the Organic Delta Arrissi Project, promoted by the Industrial Doctorate that Alfred Palma is carrying out between the University of Barcelona and Agroserveis.cat SL, and which aims to promote and boost organic rice production through a guide of good agricultural practices to promote biodiversity associated with the rice ecosystem and improve the sustainability of farms. For this, eight agronomic strategies for controlling weeds present in a rice paddy within an organic production system were studied, and strategies for dry sowing and flooding were compared with a herbicide standard for each sowing system. Weeds were identified by species and a plant-by-area density approximation was performed. In addition, the cost of manual birba needed to complete the total weed cleaning was quantified in each strategy.
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