ABSTRACT
Many farmers recognise weed management as the most difficult technical challenge facing organic crop producers (Turner et al., 2007), and some perceive it as a major obstacle for conversion from conventional to organic production. In general, weed interference is not much of a problem in fruit crops, except during the nursery phase and the early production years (Abu-Irmaileh, 1993). In forage and grassland systems most weeds can be controlled through timely cuts for hay and managed grazing, although some creeping perennials and unpalatable species may become progressively dominant in the sward (Naylor, 2002). Instead, weeds are often a major problem in arable, vegetable herbs and spice crops wherever synthetic herbicides cannot be used. This is due to the limited competitiveness of some of these crops and/or to the strict weed-free requirements for high-quality produce, for example, herbal preparations (Pannacci et al., 2017).
