Weeds are a key component of agroecosystems and compete with crop plants. Crop-weed competition has been widely investigated over the past decades, although how functional traits mediate these competitive interactions rarely explored. In this study, we measured in 4400 individual plants belonging to 32 weed species, growing among four crops differing traits. We assessed intraspecific variation ...

Wheat, a member of family Poaceae is one of the major food crops in the world. Globally, it occupies about 17% of the cropped land and contributes 35% of the staple food (Pingali 1999).Wheat constitutes one of the most abundant sources of energy and protein for the world population and its increased production is essential for food security (Chhokar et al. 2006). Severe competition from weeds i...

Agriculture is the process of managing plant communities to obtain useful materials from the small set of species we call crops. Weeds comprise the “other” set of plant species found in agroecosystems. Although they are not intentionally sown, weed species are well adapted to environments dominated by humans and have been associated with crop production since the origins of agriculture (Harlan,...

In low-input land-use systems combining timber trees with shade-tolerant understorey crops, it is essential to establish the effects of tree density upon weeds and the contribution of weeds to competition and nutrient cycling. Adjusting tree density may alter weed competition for light, water and nutrients, the storage of nutrients by weeds through growth and the release of nutrients via decomp...

jimsonweed (datura stramonium l.) is an important weed in bean fields in iran. in order to investigate the effect of density and relative time of emergence of jimsonweed on yield and yield components of chitti bean, a field study based on factorial experiment was conducted at farm bean research national station in khomein in 2006. treatments were chosen to provide four different weed densities ...

Weed pressure in 1995 was incredible! What happened to produce such a glorious crop of weeds? The answer: drought! The Drought of 1995 and Weeds and Weed Control in 1996 Weed pressure in 1995 was, in a word, incredible! I toured many areas — golf courses, lawns, athletic fields, and institutional grounds — that were solid crabgrass, knotweed, clover, etc. In many of these areas, if there weren’...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Simulations that integrate sub-models of important biological processes can be used to ask questions about optimal management strategies in agricultural and ecological systems. Building sub-models with more detail and aiming for greater accuracy and realism may seem attractive, but is likely to be more expensive and time-consuming and result in more complicated models that l...