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The Virtual WeedPatch
bioeco.html
WEED BIOLOGY & ECOLOGY
The first principle of weed management is:
The Weeds Always Win
~After many thousands of years of tillage and hand-weeding we still have
weeds.
~After 50 years of herbicides we still have weeds in the same fields.
~In every field, in every year, we always miss some weeds.
~In some years we miss many weeds in a field.
~Very infrequently we miss all the weeds in a field.
~New weed species appear frequently, spreading across the country.
~No weed species have disappeared from production fields.
~Humans have recently created an entirely new category of very nasty weeds:
herbicide resistant weeds.
The harder we try, the better they get.
The winner, and still champion........
Why do the weeds always win?
The bottom line is:
Because they adapt and change and get better.
No sitting around and whining about how unfair life is. Over evolutionary
time they have encountered everything nature has to offer. They have died
in untold zillions. The survivors are the winners.
Weed biology and ecology is the story of their success. In this section
we will learn about the processes and outcomes of this ruthless adaptation
to adversity.
Weeds are winners because:
they interfere in locations humans want to control,
wherein they evolve and adapt,
and are ready for anything because they are diverse,
and because they time their lives very carefully,
