When it comes to tillage, timing matters and drives weed communities

2018

International audience; Tillage is a foundational management practice in many cropping systems to manage weed seedbanks and reduce reliance on herbicides for weed management. Tillage alters established weed communities but can also stimulate weed seed germination and emergence. Hence, viewed within a community assembly framework tillage is a strong assembly filter that can either constrain or advance the membership of species within the subsequent weed community. At four locations in the Northeastern United States, twelve treatments of a single primary tillage (10-cm depth) event at 2-week intervals over the course of the growing season were compared using a randomized complete block design…