GARDENING: Control weeds before they reach maturity

By Jeanette Castanon

The weed seed bank is the reserve of viable weed seeds present on the soil surface and scattered throughout the soil profile. It consists of both new weed seeds recently shed, and older seeds that have persisted in the soil from previous years. In practice, the soil’s weed seed bank also includes the tubers, bulbs, rhizomes, and other vegetative structures through which some of our most serious perennial weeds propagate themselves. In the following discussion, the term weed seed bank is defined as the sum of viable weed seeds and vegetative propagules that are present in the soil and thus contribute to weed pressure in future crops. Agricultural soils can contain thousands of weed seeds and a dozen or more vegetative weed propagules per square foot.

The weed seed bank serves as a physical history of the past successes and failures of cropping systems, and knowledge of its content (size and species composition) can help producers both anticipate and ameliorate potential impacts of crop–weed competition on crop yield and quality. Eliminating “deposits” to the weed seed bank—also called seed rain—is the best approach to ease future weed management. Over a five-year period in Nebraska, broadleaf and grass weed seed banks were reduced to 5 percent of their original density when weeds were not allowed to produce seeds. However, in the sixth year, weeds were not controlled and the seed bank density increased to 90 percent of the original level (Burnside et al., 1986).

It is important to control weeds before they reach maturity and deposit more seeds into your landscape.