Weed seeds reside within soil, and those weed seeds is often referred to as an soil seedbank. A soil seedbank contains dormant weed seeds that remains within the soil for extended periods. Many weed seeds can remains dormant within the soil for decades.
During these periods, the weed seeds remain inactive and await specific condition that will encourage them to germinate. By identifying the various types of weed seeds, you can prevent weed growth in your garden before it become difficult to manage. Weed seeds exhibit various physical characteristic that allow for the identification of the type of weed that is present in your garden.
How to Find and Control Weed Seeds
For instance, the seeds of broadleaf weeds can exhibit various shape. Some may be shaped like kidney beans while others may have spiny shapes. Dandelion seeds, for instance, contain a feathery papilla that allow the weed seed to travel on the wind.
Purslane seeds are black and granular in there composition and are very tough, which allow these seeds to remain within the soil for many generations. Grass weeds can be difficult to identify with the naked eye. The seeds of grass weeds like crabgrass hide within pale husks called florets.
Crabgrass florets are elliptical in shape and contain fine vein. These florets remain dormant within the soil until they encounter warmer soil temperature that encourage them to germinate. Foxtail seeds are also challenging to identify due to the bristly enclosures that surrounds the weed seeds.
These bristly enclosures allow these seeds to become attached to an animal’s fur or clothing. Weed seeds can move in various way within the garden. Some weed seeds use the wind to travel to different parts of the garden.
Other weed seeds use plumes or wings to allow them to travel on the movement of the air. Other weed seeds can travel through the water. Other weed seeds have characteristics that allow them to stick to animals such as hook or burrs on their seeds.
Other weed seeds are heavy and will fall directly beneath the parent plant that shed the seed. Finally, humans and gardening machinery can spread the weed seeds throughout the garden. These two species spread the weed seeds either through the boot treads of humans or the machinery or through the harvest of the seeds of the weed.
To prevent the spread of the weed seeds, humans can clean their gardening tools between location within the garden. Dormancy is the state of the weed seed that prevent it from growing. This state allow the weed seed to survive in environment that are not suited to the growth of the weed.
There are two type of dormancy. Primary dormancy occurs in seeds with an impermeable seed coat that prevent the seed from germinating until winter weather or erosion breaks the coat. Secondary dormancy occurs in seeds that begin to germinate but then return to a dormant state due to an unsuitable environment for germination.
Finally, some weed seeds are sensitive to light. Such weed seeds will only germinate if the tillage of the soil bring the seeds to the surface of the soil. There are various method for managing the number of weed seeds in the soil.
One method includes the use of tillage to bury the weed seeds deep within the soil. However, tillage may bring old weed seeds to the surface of the soil. It is, therefore, important to use the minimum number of pass with tillage equipment.
Another method includes the solarization of the soil. Solarization involves the placement of plastic over the soil to trap the heat within the soil. This trapped heat will kill the weed seeds located in the top layer of the soil.
Introducing a false seedbed involve allowing the weed seeds to germinate and then killing the resulting seedlings. This method will reduce the number of weed seeds in the soil. Finally, covering the soil with thick mulch layers will prevent the growth of the weed seeds.
The mulch layer will block the light needed by the weed seeds to germinate. The proper timing of weed management method can considerably enhance the success of these methods. For example, you can use pre-emergent treatments in the spring before the soil becomes warm.
In the spring, fresh mulch can also be added to the garden beds. During the summer, shallow cultivation can be performed in the garden. In the summer, flowers of weeds can also be removed to avoid the formation of new weed seeds.
During the fall, cover crops can be planted into the soil to cover it. Additionally, you should also rinse the gardening equipment in the fall to avoid the spread of weed seeds in new locations. Finally, during the winter is the time to plan crop rotation for the following year and source clean seed for those crops.
By identifying the weed seeds early in the year and managing the weed seeds in your garden throughout the year, you will be sure to prevent weed infestations in your garden.