Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
Edamame, a specialty food-grade soybean popular among health-consciousconsumers, is growing in popularity worldwide. Despite a well-developedsoybean industry, most edamame consumed in the United States is importedfrom Asia. Considerable interest exists in growing edamame domestically;however, weed interference is a major problem, and until recently, only asingle herbicide was registered for use on the crop. The objectives of thiswork were (1) to compare effectiveness of weed management treatments thatutilize herbicides currently registered for use on edamame or that may beregistered in the near future, (2) to determine the significance of edamamecultivar on performance of these treatments, and (3) to identify potentialrelationships between the crop and weed. Ten different weed managementtreatments were tested in three edamame cultivars over a 3-yr period. Allweed management treatments increased marketable pod yield relative to thenontreated control, but only treatments with saflufenacil or S-metolachlor combinations were comparable to thehand-weeded weed-free treatment. Of the treatments studied, S-metolachlor followed by imazamox was among thegreatest yielding, had the least weed density and biomass, and did notreduce crop population density. Also, cultivars differed in theirweed-suppressive ability. Path analysis indicated certain relationships wereconsistent across cultivars, such as weed population density having a directnegative association with crop biomass; however, other edamame–weedinteractions were not identical across cultivars. Although more improvementsare needed, the vegetable industry is beginning to have nascent weedmanagement options in edamame, which will likely reduce reliance on handweeding and result in crop-production costs that are more competitive in theglobal market.