Soil solarization trials were conducted during the growing seasons of 2016-2018 with the purpose of determining if solarization was an effective pre-planting soil disinfestation technique for tree nurseries in the Pacific Northwest. A large data set was collected on soil properties and biological indicators from 5 interdisciplinary experiments. This thesis...
Weed management is one of the main challenges for organic agriculture. Soil solarization has been shown to be an effective mitigation strategy for weeds and soil borne plant pathogens but few studies have been conducted in cooler climates such as the Pacific Northwest.
Soil solarization is a pre-planting practice to reduce weed pressure by trapping solar energy using a transparent polyethylene film to heat soil. Soil solarization has been successfully used in regions with high solar radiation. The purpose of this research was to determine if soil solarization under Pacific Northwest conditions could...
Nursery and greenhouse products are economically important agricultural commodities for Oregon and Washington. Nursery crops including tree seedlings can be damaged or killed by soilborne plant pathogens, which can be challenging to manage because of their persistence in soil and limited options for control. Soil solarization is a pre-planting soil...
In horticultural nurseries for container-grown plants, production and sales have been threatened by the presence of a quarantined plant pathogen, Phytophthora ramorum (causal agent of sudden oak death). Infested nursery beds are an important source of P. ramorum, which can initiate disease through movement with surface water to infect roots...