The development of problematic weed populations is a concern in western Canadian fields where canola and pea are grown in a 4-yr sequence with spring cereal grains. Weed densities were examined at a site near Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada, from 1994 to 1997 in seven zero-till managed crop rotations. Four rotations that included canola, pea, or flax in at least 3 of 4 yr (HBF: high broadleaf–crop frequency) were compared with three rotations that included broadleaf crops grown in 2 of 4 yr (LBF: low broadleaf–crop frequency). Spring wheat and barley were the cereal crops in rotation. Residual (postherbicide application) weed density for each weed species in a given year was summed across all phases for each rotation to reflect the overall weed infestation. Four annual broadleaf weed species were most abundant in 1996 and a second group of three species, having a variety of reproductive strategies, became progressively less abundant as the study progressed. The difference between the HBF and LBF rotations for the density of these species varied and was most prominent in years when environmental conditions were conducive for their growth. More frequent applications of ethafluralin, with its residual weed control, best explained why wild oat and catchweed bedstraw generally were less abundant in the HBF rotations. Of particular interest was the 8 plants m−-2 greater density of dandelion and perennial sowthistle in the HBF vs. LBF rotations in the last year of the study. It is thought that the limited herbicide options for the control of these species could present a future problem if they continued to develop in the HBF rotations. Differences in herbicide use between the HBF and LBF rotations were considered the primary factor controlling the rotation effects on weed density.

Generalizations concerning the effects of management practices on weed community dynamics often lack robustness, most likely because of the concomitant effects of agronomic and environmental factors. However, such generalizations, when valid, provide useful grounds for predictions and are thus desirable. This study attempted to evaluate the relative importance of crop rotation, tillage, and weed management as factors affecting weed communities and tested the hypothesis of an association between management practices and weeds from certain life cycle groups. Principal component analysis (PCA) of weed density data from a 4-yr field study conducted on a Kamouraska clay and a Saint-André gravelly sandy loam at La Pocatière QC, Canada, identified groups of weed species, while an analysis of variance (ANOVA) of PCA scores associated these groups with management factors. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) of regression coefficients describing time courses of density for each species confirmed treatment effects. Species segregated roughly according to life cycles. Interactions among weed management intensity, tillage, and crop rotation mostly explained species dominance in the various cropping systems. A first group of species, mostly annual dicots, largely dominated in minimum weed management treatments; their relative importance in each rotation varied with their level of susceptibility to postemergence herbicides. A second group included annuals and perennials, whose commonality seemed to be their tolerance to herbicides; these species also had a particular affinity for chisel and no-till treatments. A third group was formed by perennial species, each with a different response to tillage. The tenuous correspondence between commonly used classification schemes and management factors suggests that other aspects of weed biology (e.g., seed size, dispersal, production, germination requirements, and seedbank longevity) should be considered when trying to explain and predict the presence and dominance of certain weed species with regard to management practices.

Weed seedling emergence is partially dependent on biotic and abiotic conditions directly surrounding the seed. When environmental conditions are appropriate, seed germination and emergence occurs. We studied the impact of seeding depth (surface, 1 to 2, 3 to 4, and 6 to 7 cm) and fluctuating soil moisture regimes (field capacity [FC]–1/3FC–FC; FC–1/6FC–FC) on percent weed emergence in a greenhouse. At FC, wild mustard and field pennycress had the greatest percent emergence when seeds were placed on or near the soil surface, whereas percent emergence of barnyardgrass and round-leaved mallow was unaffected by seeding depth. All the perennials tested had the greatest percent emergence at FC when seeds were placed near or on the soil surface, except for common milkweed which only emerged below the soil surface. When soil moisture levels fluctuated, surface seeds of barnyardgrass, catchweed bedstraw, green foxtail, wheat, and wild oat had less emergence than seeds below the soil surface; field pennycress had increased emergence when the seeds were placed on the surface; and round-leaved mallow and wild mustard emergence was unaffected by seeding depth. The emergence of curly dock, dandelion, and perennial sowthistle was unaffected by seeding depth, whereas foxtail barley and quackgrass emergence was reduced when seeds were placed on the surface and soil moisture fluctuated.

Today, the aim of weed management is to keep the weed community at an acceptable level rather than to keep the crop totally free of weeds. Satisfactory control of weeds may often be obtained when herbicides are used at lower doses than normally recommended. To facilitate the decision of what is an adequate dose in a specific field, the farmer needs support. In 1988 and 1989, a total of 10 field trials in spring cereals were initiated in Sweden with the objective of studying long-term effects of herbicide application according to recommendations from guidelines: the guidelines were developed at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and consisted of printed cards designed for in-field use. Treatments also included a full and a half dose and an untreated control. As an average over the experimental time, i.e., until 1997, the dose used in the guideline treatment varied at different sites between 20 and 70% of a full dose. In 1998, i.e., 1 yr after the last herbicide application, the plant densities of annual weeds in the guideline treatment, the half and the full doses were 51, 57, and 67% lower, respectively, than in the untreated control when averaged over sites. At two and four sites, the half and full doses resulted in significantly lower weed densities than where guidelines had been used. Compared with the control, the full and half doses increased the proportion of difficult-to-control weed species significantly at five and four sites by 21 and 24%, respectively. In the guideline treatment the proportion of difficult-to-control weeds was increased at one site. In 1998, weed counts were higher where guidelines had been used than in the full dose for common lambsquarters and common chickweed at three sites each and for wallflower mustard, catchweed bedstraw, field violet, Galeopsis spp., and Lamium spp. at one site each. At three sites, no significant treatment effects on crop yields were found, whereas yields at the remaining seven sites were higher where guidelines had been used than in other treatments in several years. It is concluded that application of dose rates according to recommendations from guidelines can be a fruitful way to reduce herbicide use.

False cleavers and catchweed bedstraw are problematic weeds of field crops in high-latitude regions of the northern Great Plains of North America. The abundance of these species has been increasing in areas of greater tillage intensity and frequency. Field experiments were established over 4 site-yr in Manitoba, Canada, and results indicated that the recruitment of false cleavers and catchweed bedstraw was strongly promoted by a single shallow tillage operation with a sweep cultivator in the spring. Percent recruitment levels in 2001 (pooled over sites) were 17 and 46% for the untilled and tilled treatments, respectively. In 2002, the percent recruitment levels for the untilled and tilled treatments, respectively, were 28 and 38% for the Komarno site and 13 and 28% for the Petersfield site. Only a few and minor differences in microsite conditions (soil temperature, soil moisture, and bulk density) resulted from the single spring tillage pass. The single tillage pass caused a significant relocation of simulated seeds (plastic beads) to below the soil surface and deeper into the soil profile (2–4 cm). Mean bulk density and volumetric soil moisture increased significantly with soil depth. The results of this study suggest that the positive effect of tillage on cleavers recruitment was not due to the effect of tillage on microsite conditions per se. Rather, the vertical redistribution of seed by tillage moved these seeds to a place in which the microsite conditions differed from those on the surface and were more favorable for recruitment. False cleavers and catchweed bedstraw recruitment is clearly promoted by tillage (even minor tillage) under field conditions, and farmers might be able to limit recruitment by limiting spring tillage.

Plants of catchweed bedstraw from different Norwegian locations and from three other countries were compared with respect to morphological factors, herbicide sensitivity, and genetic variation. For the morphological comparison of cotyledons, whorls, leaves, and fruits five populations, grown outdoors but sheltered from rain, were used. Plants from Belgium and Sweden showed a high similarity, whereas one Norwegian population differed significantly in nearly all parameters. The same populations were used for a comparison of the sensitivity to the herbicide mecoprop-P. In this study, only slight differences appeared between the five populations. Finally, a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequence analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions was performed. The entire sequence of the ITS1 and ITS2 and the 5.8S subunit of ribosomal DNA were obtained from 15 populations (12 from Norway and one each from Sweden, Belgium, and Germany). The sequences had a length between 590 and 662 base pairs; intraspecific length variation was observed. Based on six insertions–deletions and 26 nucleotide substitutions, two DNA types could be distinguished. The first type consisted of eight Norwegian populations, whereas the second one contained the other seven populations including all non-Norwegian populations. The sequence alignments were used to build a phylogenetic tree. The results of the morphological comparison mostly corresponded with the results of the ITS sequence analysis. The variation was only to some extent correlated with the geographic distribution of the populations.

Studies quantifying weed seed production as a function of weed density are expensive and difficult, and lack of these data is a common limitation in modeling weed population dynamics over time. Observed empirical and theoretical relationships between crop yield loss curves and weed seed production curves led us to the hypothesis that there should be a strong relationship between the shapes of these two curves. Data from literature sources were evaluated to test this hypothesis for hyperbolic curves and to determine if the data describing the crop yield loss caused by weeds could provide estimates of the shape parameter of a hyperbolic equation for describing density dependence in weed reproduction. For each of 162 data sets, a shape parameter (N50) and a scale parameter (U) were estimated for an increasing hyperbolic model both for absolute crop yield loss as a function of weed density (N50YL, UYL) and for weed yield (either total biomass yield or seed yield) as a function of weed density (N50WY, UWY). N50YL was strongly correlated with N50WY across all data sets, with an apparent 1:1 relationship between the two. This relationship suggests that the shape parameter of the yield loss model may substitute for the shape parameter of a hyperbolic model describing the density-dependence of weed seed production. This substitution will be most useful in weed population modeling situations where data describing crop yield loss as a function of weed density are already available, but data describing weed seed production as a function of weed density are not available.

Trials were carried out to investigate the effects of seed burial depth on seedling emergence rate of 20 weed species. Marked depth-mediated variation in emergence ability of the different species was observed, together with a general pattern of decreasing emergence with increasing soil depth. At 10 cm, only johnsongrass, velvetleaf, catchweed bedstraw, and cutleaf geranium emerged, albeit only in limited numbers. Species most severely inhibited by burial depth were buckhorn plantain, large crabgrass, common purslane, chickweed, and corn spurry, none of which emerged from beyond 6 cm. In all species, depth-mediated inhibition was found to be sigmoidal (polynomial regression). In addition, the number of seedlings and rate of seedling emergence decreased when depth of burial increased. The depth at which the number of emerged seedlings was halved varied by species and ranged from 3.6 cm for common purslane and chickweed to 7 cm for velvetleaf and catchweed bedstraw. Excessive burial depth generally induced dormancy (in roughly 85% of cases) rather than suicide germination. A close inverse relation (second-degree equation) between seed unit weight and depth-mediated inhibition was observed. The physiological involvement of depth inhibition in seed bank ecology is discussed.

The objective of this study was to examine the effects of crop rotation (spring barley monoculture vs. spring barley–red clover 2-yr rotation), tillage (moldboard plow, chisel plow, no-till), and weed management (intensive, moderate, minimum) on plant–seedbank relationships for 19 weed species. Plant and seedbank density data were collected over 4 yr and analyzed by analysis of variance and correlation analysis to confirm treatment effects on plant–seedbank relationships. The relative frequency (difference between aboveground and seedbank frequency) of many species was more influenced by rotation, whereas species density appeared regulated more by weed management than by other factors. Frequency data confirmed that very few species were ubiquitous over time or treatment, aboveground or in the seedbank. The perennial species, field horsetail, quackgrass, white clover, and perennial sowthistle were more frequent aboveground than in the seedbank. This was also observed for annuals such as common hempnettle, sun spurge, catchweed bedstraw, and annual grasses. Treatment effects on abundance were inconsistent aboveground and in the seedbank across time for 12 of 19 species. The seven species that showed more consistent treatment response for abundance were frequent species present in 50% of the plots both aboveground and in the seedbank. For most species, plant density was correlated with either the previous or current year seedbank, but correlations were rarely of the same magnitude and significance over the years. Common chickweed was the only species for which treatment effects on the plant–seedbank relationship were confirmed for all 4 yr. Correlations between midseason plant populations and subsequent seedbanks confirmed the role of residual populations in replenishing the seedbanks, including those of perennials like quackgrass and dandelion. Overall, plant–seedbank relationships were tenuous for many weed species and varied over time with cropping practices and environment.

A new strain of the fungus Plectosporium tabacinum was isolated from naturally-infected false cleavers plants and evaluated as a bioherbicide for the control of both herbicide-resistant and herbicide-susceptible false cleavers in canola. Plectosporium tabacinum was nonpathogenic to both Argentine canola and Polish canola and to both herbicide-tolerant and conventional cultivars. Plectosporium tabacinum killed false cleavers seedlings when applied at a concentration of 1 × 107 conidia ml−1 and provided with 16 h dew. The efficacy of P. tabacinum on herbicide-resistant false cleavers was identical to that on herbicide-susceptible false cleavers. Catchweed bedstraw was also highly susceptible to P. tabacinum. Further host-range tests on 34 plant species in 26 genera and 12 families demonstrated that P. tabacinum is sufficiently host specific for false cleavers control in western Canada. This fungus may provide a novel approach for managing herbicide-resistant false cleavers.

Laboratory experiments were conducted to determine the effects of oxygen concentration (21, 10, 5, and 2.5%), exposure to light, and osmotic potential on the germination of wheat, canola, and various weed species. Germination of most species increased as osmotic potential was increased. Seed germination for some species like barnyardgrass was inhibited by the combination of exposure to normoxic (21% oxygen) conditions and light. This combination of conditions may function as a signal to prevent soil surface germination. Wild mustard germination increased with increasing oxygen concentration when seeds were not exposed to light, whereas green foxtail germination was relatively insensitive to oxygen concentration. Wild oat germination increased with increasing osmotic potential, and osmotic potential had a greater influence when the seeds were exposed to light. Dandelion, foxtail barley, curly dock, and perennial sowthistle germination was affected more by osmotic potential and light exposure than by oxygen concentration. A better understanding of the mechanisms of depth detection for specific species will lead to a better understanding of their recruitment biology. This information may help model the potential for invasion and proliferation of each species as well as devise improved management strategies.