Integrated Weed Management - One Year's Seeding

Weed biology and ecology can help every farmer become a better weed manager. This guide is the result of a series of winter meetings attended by Michigan farmers, MSU Extension agents and research scientists. It brings together field-tested experience from successful growers and Extension agents and insights distilled from more than 50 years of weed science research.

Since the introduction of the IPM concept in the early 1970's, there have been repeated calls in the Weed Science literature for the corresponding development of an integrated approach to weed management (IWM). The majority of IWM publications have focused on spray thresholds or means of improving herbicide efficacy, with only a handful investigating new, non-chemical, tools for weed management or ways of integrating existing tools. In this publication, the authors provide several types of information to support IWM.

First, they develop a weed biology and ecology context in which to ground an IWM approach to weed management. Such information includes weed life histories, seedbank dynamics, modes of dispersal, effects of soil characteristics upon weeds, and the relation between cropping system characteristics and weed ecology. Second, they provide examples of new tools and means of integrating these with existing tools. Finally, they provide profiles for 12 economically important weed species in the North Central Region, with information on biology and management for each species.

Want more information? See the related SARE grant(s) LNC04-251, One Year's Seeding: a Seedbank Approach to Sustainable Weed Management .