Weeds

Weeds are important component of the agroecosystem. They always grow with crops and its economic impact is greatest in agriculture. It is an important factor to consider in the management of land and water resources and dictate many of the crop production practices and management decision in growing crops.

We can defined a weed as a plant unwanted at a particular time and place and can do more harm than good under such time and place. The concept of a weed is man-made. One man's crop may be another man's weed. Of the 300,000 species of angiosperms, 10% 30,000 species behave as weed 99% of the time.

Weeds can be characterized to have a rapid vegetative growth, reproduce rapidly and mature early, be very prolific and produce plenty of seeds, have the ability to survive and adapt to adverse conditions, be adapted to crop competition, and whose propagules possess dormancy or can be induced to become dormant under favorable conditions.

The last characteristic of the weed is the reason why most of the empty lots we see today are populated with weeds. One year of planting would equal to seven years of weeding.