The plant now stretches from the north of the Cotentin to Mont-Saint-Michel Bay. In Normandy, market-garden areas that had until now been spared have detected its arrival.
Nutsedge competes directly with the sand carrot, an emblematic crop of the Manche coast. Plot losses are weighing on volumes and on the balance of market-garden farms.
Native to the Mediterranean, nutsedge has colonized the dunes of Créances. At this time of year, the carrot fields should be a brilliant green.
Each plant can produce more than a thousand seeds a year. Nothing seems able to stop its growth: you cut it, it grows back.
Cleaning equipment aims to break the soil-contamination cycle. Without that, the bulbs move from one field to another.
To limit spread, specialists recommend cleaning cultivation machinery, which carries bulbs from one farm to another.
Farmers note that nutsedge was not a problem before the ban on certain pesticides considered potentially carcinogenic.
Nutsedge, an invasive weed, is proliferating in carrot plots and threatening vegetable growers in the Manche.
The sector is calling for new tools to target this invasive plant.