Impact of 40 Years Use of Different Herbicide Strategies and Crop Rotations on Weed Communities in Two Sites of the Czech Republic

Markéta Mayerová (), Jan Mikulka, Michaela Kolářová and Josef Soukup
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Markéta Mayerová: Division of Crop Management System, Crop Research Institute, Drnovská 507, 161 06 Prague, Czech Republic
Jan Mikulka: Division of Crop Management System, Crop Research Institute, Drnovská 507, 161 06 Prague, Czech Republic
Michaela Kolářová: Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Prague, Czech Republic
Josef Soukup: Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Prague, Czech Republic

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Understanding the impact of farming practices on the composition of weed communities has important implications for the sustainability of weed management strategies. This study analyses data from a 40-year experiment established at two sites in the Czech Republic in 1972. The impact of herbicide strategies on the weed communities was evaluated in multi-crop rotation (MCR) with 50% cereals, and simple crop rotations (SCR) with 75% cereals. The following two herbicide strategies were compared: (1) simple treatment with synthetic auxins only in the simple crop rotation, and (2) targeted herbicide combinations with particular use of sulfonylureas, triazines, ureas and synthetic auxins. Untreated plots were included for reference purposes. Results showed that crop was the major factor determining weed community composition and explained 18% of the total variation in the case of untreated controls. However, herbicide treatment reduced the crop effect to 11%. The highest average increase of Shannon’s diversity index was by 25.4% after 44 years at the untreated plots in SCR, and it decreased by 15.1% at the treated plots in MCR. Weed species evenness € increased at all plots by an average of 23%. Simpson’s dominance index decreased at untreated plots in both crop rotations and plots treated with auxins, with the highest 44.8% decrease at the untreated plots in SCR. On the contrary, Simpson’s index increased by 33,3% on the treated plots in MCR. Herbicide selection depended on the occurrence and density of target weed species, and led to greater decrease in weed diversity and population densities in the diversified crop rotations.

Keywords: herbicide treatment; long-term field trial; species diversity; weed management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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