Fall Weed Control

Weed control is the botanical component of pest control, which attempts to stop weeds, especially noxious or injurious weeds, from competing with domesticated plants and livestock. Many strategies have been developed in order to contain these plants.

 The original strategy was manual removal including ploughing, which can cut the roots of weeds. More recent approaches include herbicides (chemical weed killers) and reducing stocks by burning and/or pulverizing seeds.

A plant is often termed a "weed" when it has one or more of the following characteristics:

Little or no recognized value (as in medicinal, material, nutritional or energy)

Rapid growth and/or ease of germination

Competitive with crops for space, light, water and nutrients

The definition of a weed is completely context-dependent. To one person, one plant may be a weed, and to another person it may be a desirable plant. In one place, a plant may be viewed as a weed, whereas in another place, the same plant may be desirable.

Weeds compete with productive crops or pasture, ultimately converting productive land into unusable scrub. Weeds can be poisonous, distasteful, produce burrs, thorns or otherwise interfere with the use and management of desirable plants by contaminating harvests or interfering with livestock.

Weeds compete with crops for space, nutrients, water and light. Smaller, slower growing seedlings are more susceptible than those that are larger and more vigorous. Onions are one of the most vulnerable, because they are slow to germinate and produce slender, upright stems. By contrast broad beans produce large seedlings and suffer far fewer effects other than during periods of water shortage at the crucial time when the pods are filling out. Transplanted crops raised in sterile soil or potting compost gain a head start over germinating weeds.

Weeds also vary in their competitive abilities and according to conditions and season. Tall-growing vigorous weeds such as fat hen (Chenopodium album) can have the most pronounced effects on adjacent crops, although seedlings of fat hen that appear in late summer produce only small plants. Chickweed (Stellaria media), a low growing plant, can happily co-exist with a tall crop during the summer, but plants that have overwintered will grow rapidly in early spring and may swamp crops such as onions or spring greens.

The presence of weeds does not necessarily mean that they are damaging a crop, especially during the early growth stages when both weeds and crops can grow without interference. However, as growth proceeds they each begin to require greater amounts of water and nutrients. Estimates suggest that weed and crop can co-exist harmoniously for around three weeks before competition becomes significant. One study found that after competition had started, the final yield of onion bulbs was reduced at almost 4% per day.[1]

Weeds can also host pests and diseases that can spread to cultivated crops. Charlock and Shepherd's purse may carry clubroot, eelworm can be harboured by chickweed, fat hen and shepherd's purse, while the cucumber mosaic virus, which can devastate the cucurbit family, is carried by a range of different weeds including chickweed and groundsel.

Insect pests often do not attack weeds. However pests such as cutworms may first attack weeds then move on to cultivated crops.

Some plants are considered weeds by some farmers and crops by others. Charlock, a common weed in the southeastern US, are weeds according to row crop growers, but are valued by beekeepers, who seek out places where it blooms all winter, thus providing pollen for honeybees and other pollinators. Its bloom resists all but a very hard freeze, and recovers once the freeze ends.

In domestic gardens, methods of weed control include covering an area of ground with a material that creates a hostile environment for weed growth, known as a weed mat.

Several layers of wet newspaper prevent light from reaching plants beneath, which kills them. Daily saturating the newspaper with water plant decomposition. After several weeks, all germinating weed seeds are dead.

In the case of black plastic, the greenhouse effect kills the plants. Although the black plastic sheet is effective at preventing weeds that it covers, it is difficult to achieve complete coverage. Eradicating persistent perennials may require the sheets to be left in place for at least two seasons.

Some plants are said to produce root exudates that suppress herbaceous weeds. Tagetes minuta is claimed to be effective against couch and ground elder,[3] whilst a border of comfrey is also said to act as a barrier against the invasion of some weeds including couch. A 5–10 centimetres (2.0–3.9 in)} layer of wood chip mulch prevents most weeds from sprouting.

Gravel can serve as an inorganic mulch.

Irrigation is sometimes used as a weed control measure such as in the case of paddy fields to kill any plant other than the water-tolerant rice crop.

It doesn’t matter to us whether you want desert landscaping, lush lawns or some type of landscaping in between, we can help.  We serve businesses like yours all over the Phoenix Metro Area. To find out how give us a call at 623-848-8277.

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Greens Keeper Landscape Maintenance, LLC

623-848-8277

http://www.commerciallandscapecare.com

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