Activities

The project has found that only 4 out of the 6 studied weed communities produce significant yield loses. The key parameters that reduce the competition of the weed community are: the diversity of ecological functions shared by the community and that the total weed biomass is evenly distributed among the different weed species.



Further research has to be conducted on other weed communities and how they interact with different crops and under different conditions, to better understand the factors that influence competition. Taking into account the current results, the researchers recommend targeting only competitive weeds when weeding. Given that this would be difficult to accomplish without damaging other plant species, further studies have to check whether weed diversity can be promoted by using combinations of weeding methods.

Additional information

Adeux, G., Vieren, E., Carlesi, S., Bàrberi, P., Munier-Jolain, N., Cordeau, S., 2019. Mitigating crop yield losses through weed diversity. Nature Sustainability 2, 1018-1026.