Armillaria root rot (ARR) is a fungal disease that damages peach tree root systems and reduces tree longevity.
Planting peach trees on raised berms and excavating soil around the root collar can help manage ARR. However, berms also create challenges such as water ponding, soil erosion and chemical runoff.
As part of his master’s degree study, Coleman Scroggs, restoration agriculture farm manager for the Clemson University Piedmont Research and Education Center, developed a tractor-mounted rotary tillage system with a custom paddle wheel attachment to level berms and improve orchard operations. During field trials, Scroggs and his research team found using a medium setting for the paddle wheel and tractor speeds yielded the best results.
A paper about this study, Reducing adverse effects of berms in peach tree Armillaria management, is the cover story for the May edition of MDPI AgriEngineering.
Scroggs graduated with a master’s degree in agricultural sciences in 2022. Other researchers for the project were Bulent Koc, Guido Schnabel and Michael Vassalos.
This work is funded by the NIFA-USDA Specialty Crop Research Initiative project #2020-51181-32142.
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