Weed Communities in Winter Wheat: Responses to Cropping Systems under Different Climatic Conditions
1
Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA
2
School of Food and Agriculture, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Roberto Mancinelli and Emanuele Radicetti
Sustainability 2022, 14(11), 6880; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116880
Received: 15 April 2022
/
Revised: 2 June 2022
/
Accepted: 2 June 2022
/
Published: 5 June 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Weed Control in the Agroecosystems)
Understanding the impact of biological and environmental stressors on cropping systems is essential to secure the long-term sustainability of agricultural production in the face of unprecedented climatic conditions. This study evaluated the effect of increased soil temperature and reduced moisture across three contrasting cropping systems: a no-till chemically managed system, a tilled organic system, and an organic system that used grazing to reduce tillage intensity. Results showed that while cropping system characteristics represent a major driver in structuring weed communities, the short-term impact of changes in temperature and moisture conditions appear to be more subtle. Weed community responses to temperature and moisture manipulations differed across variables: while biomass, species richness, and Simpson’s diversity estimates were not affected by temperature and moisture conditions, we observed a minor but significant shift in weed community composition. Higher weed biomass was recorded in the grazed/reduced-till organic system compared with the tilled-organic and no-till chemically managed systems. Weed communities in the two organic systems were more diverse than in the no-till conventional system, but an increased abundance in perennial species such as Cirsium arvense and Taraxacum officinale in the grazed/reduced-till organic system could hinder the adoption of integrated crop-livestock production tactics. Species composition of the no-till conventional weed communities showed low species richness and diversity, and was encompassed in the grazed/reduced-till organic communities. The weed communities of the no-till conventional and grazed/reduced-till organic systems were distinct from the tilled organic community, underscoring the effect that tillage has on the assembly of weed communities. Results highlight the importance of understanding the ecological mechanisms structuring weed communities, and integrating multiple tactics to reduce off-farm inputs while managing weeds.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
conventional agriculture; organic agriculture; reduced tillage; crop-livestock integration; climate change
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Supplementary File 1:
ZIP-Document (ZIP, 908 KiB)
MDPI and ACS Style
Seipel, T.; Ishaq, S.L.; Larson, C.; Menalled, F.D. Weed Communities in Winter Wheat: Responses to Cropping Systems under Different Climatic Conditions. Sustainability 2022, 14, 6880. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116880
AMA Style
Seipel T, Ishaq SL, Larson C, Menalled FD. Weed Communities in Winter Wheat: Responses to Cropping Systems under Different Climatic Conditions. Sustainability. 2022; 14(11):6880. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116880
Chicago/Turabian StyleSeipel, Tim, Suzanne L. Ishaq, Christian Larson, and Fabian D. Menalled. 2022. "Weed Communities in Winter Wheat: Responses to Cropping Systems under Different Climatic Conditions" Sustainability 14, no. 11: 6880. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116880
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
