2025/10/20 by Matthew William Huchteman, S. Moore, Juan Cabrera Garcia +9 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Berry genetics and cultivation research #Plant Disease Management Techniques #Plant Physiology and Cultivation Studies
paper · doi:10.21273/hortsci18880-25
openalex publication_date 2025/10/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
American elderberry ( Sambucus nigra subsp. canadensis ) is a rapidly developing specialty crop, native to eastern and midwestern North America. Crop development over the last three decades has been driven by a renewed interest in the crop’s purported health benefits, including antiviral, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immunoregulatory properties. Weed management in American elderberry is a major challenge, but little information or guidance is currently available to producers. The aim of this study was to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of six weed management strategies, with the goal of elucidating cost effective and practical methods for weed management in American elderberry production. Study objectives included evaluating elderberry plant growth, yields, and fruit quality; assessing weed suppression outcomes; and conducting partial budget analyses between management methods. Research plantings incorporating three cultivars (‘Bob Gordon’, ‘Pocahontas’ and ‘Rogersville’) were established in 2022 at two Missouri, USA, sites, and data were collected over the 2023 and 2024 growing seasons. Treatments included woven landscape fabric, woodchip mulch, cover crop [oats ( Avena sativa ) and buckwheat ( Fagopyrum esculentum )], herbicide (glufosinate and dichlobenil), managed (hand-weeded) control, and unmanaged control. Weed management treatment influenced elderberry plant phenology, fruit quality, plant growth, and cumulative fruit yield. Woodchip mulch and woven fabric treatments resulted in plant heights similar to that of the managed control. Herbicide, woodchip mulch, and woven fabric treatments resulted in the greatest fruit yields, which were similar to the managed control. The cover crop treatment offered yields significantly lower than all treatments aside from the unmanaged control. Compared with the unmanaged control, the woven fabric treatment reduced weed biomass by 44%, while the cover crop, woodchip mulch, and herbicide treatments reduced weed biomass by 71%, 86%, and 91%, respectively. American elderberry cultivar had no influence on weed biomass or population. In the partial budget analysis, herbicide and woodchip mulch treatments performed well at both sites, while the cover crop treatment performed poorly. Profitability of the woven fabric treatment varied between sites. The results indicate that both woodchip mulch and herbicide treatments were effective in reducing weed biomass and improving both plant growth and fruit yield, while also proving to be consistently economically efficient across year, site, and cultivar.