|
North Central Illinois | Thanks for sharing.
Your comment that the goal is "maintaining MANAGEABLE weed seed banks" is really important. With a plethora of imperfect management tools we can't achieve zero deposits to the weed seed bank, but we can take steps to avoid complete doom too. Personally my two biggest concerns are a newly acquired field with a giant ragweed problem in some areas and jimson weed on some of my long term organic land.
A couple things that are intriguing. In the study linking higher nitrate levels with increased weed seed germination, am I ready correctly that seeds produced by plants with abundant nitrate availability produce seeds with lower dormancy levels?
I love the swatting the hornet's nest analogy. I can have a field of soybeans planted in crimped rye with a modest amount of common ragweed and a few perennials. Then I'll run a high residue cultivator to reduce that problem and two weeks later I can't take a step in the tilled strips without stepping on a velvet leaf seedling. This isn't a problem if at canopy closure as the soybeans will choke them out, but a very stark reminder of how strongly tillage "wakes up" some seeds of some species.
Adding two pictures where I spread cattle manure and moldboard plowed a 30' strip next to the fence in late March, then lightly disked the entire field in late April. Photos taken May 11. Similar difference in weed emergence continued through the season.
Edited by Blusteryknollfarm 1/7/2026 13:19
 (IMG_20240511_162830965_HDR (full).jpg)
 (IMG_20240511_162423217 (full).jpg)
Attachments
----------------
 IMG_20240511_162830965_HDR (full).jpg (249KB - 12 downloads)
IMG_20240511_162423217 (full).jpg (184KB - 10 downloads)
| |
|
Lots of discussion of no-chem weed management recently :)
