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• Weed information
• Identifying weeds
• Benefits of weeds
  • Biodiversity
  • Rare arable plants
  • Uses for weeds
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Benefits of Weeds in Farming Systems

Organic farmers and growers should not be aiming to completely eradicate weeds from their fields and farms. Management rather than complete control is a more realistic and desirable goal. The word 'management' emphasises use of appropriate methods to maintain acceptable weed levels that take into account short-term economic and long-term ecological issues.

In spite of all the difficulties caused by weeds, they can offer some beneficial properties, particularly when occurring at low densities. These aspects should be utilised in the farming system, although this may make organic management more complicated than chemical based systems. Some of the potential benefits of weeds are listed below:

• helping to conserve soil moisture and prevent erosion. A ground cover of weeds will reduce the amount of bare soil exposed helping to conserve nutrients, particularly nitrogen which could otherwise be leached away, especially on light soils.
  
• food and shelter can be provided for natural enemies of pests and even alternative food sources for crop pests. The actual presence of weed cover may be a factor in increasing effectiveness of biological control of pests and reducing pest damage.
  
• weeds can also be valuable indicators of growing conditions in a field, for example of water levels, compaction and pH.
  
• weeds can be an important source of food for wildlife, especially birds. Bird populations have been declining on farmland over the last few decades and leaving weeds as a resource has been shown to help revive bird populations.
  
  We have provided more information on some benefits of weeds including:
  
  
  • biodiversity
  
  
  • rare arable plants
  
  
  • uses for weeds
  
  

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  Comments

  1. There may be a case for weed cover in woody nursery stock crops during the period November - March (approx) provided they are immature i.e. non-flowering, where they provide frost protection to the soil i.e. prevent soil from freezing thus permitting easier lifting of bare root plants during frosty weather.
     

     - Geoff Forster 5---0-2005

  
  
  2. re comment about weeds in nursery stock,
     I ommitted to specify annual weed cover in my note.
     

     - Geoff Forster 5---0-2005

  
  
  3. (originally posted systems forum on 28 Feb 2006). While it seems that much of the discussion on weeds deals with the problems for large scale farmers, there are untold small-scale growers who could be shown how to benefit from an, in my opinion, most valuable resource, namely the much maligned and underappreciated, ever so humble weed. In my almost 30 years experience with the simple method, as described in my essay, weeds have always contributed to the life and well-being of the soil and plants when so managed. Have sent essay (Alliance for Progress) on benefits and application of weeds (for small-scale growers) to: enquiry@hdra.org.uk
     
     

     - Marcel 5---0-2006

  
  
  4. Weeds contribute to the stability or persistence of insects where crops are seasonally (harvest) or annually (crop rotations) absent and this may help to provide alternatives for entomopathogens associated with these pests. This is because survival of entomopathogens depends upon supply of host insects and where host specific entomopathogens are involved, elimination of these insects may interfere with their survival. For instance, Pandora neoaphidis and Conidiobolus obscurus has been reported to multiply and overwinter in economically unimportant aphid species in meadows adjacent to annual crops and reduce pest aphid populations in adjacent annual crops. It has also been found that weed canopy affords a better environment for transmission of entomophthoralean fungi than wheat crop alone. This means that the presence of weeds may enhance the effect of entomopathogens through maintenance of high humidity that is required for sporulation and provide shelter against adverse conditions
     

     - Vitalis Wafula Wekesa 4---0-2007

  
  
  5. Charlock is very bad for a weed in crops but has/had sustenance in soup
     

     - Ann McDermott 4---0-2007

  
  
  6. I had a foster child named Wakesa Wafula who was born Dec 25 1986
     I was wondering if the article written on weeds was written by him 25-04-2007
     armstrongt@eastlink.ca
     

     - tillie armstrong 0---1-2007

  
  
  7. weed is good for tuberculosis
     

     - ali k 4---0-2009

  
  
  8. some weeds produce pesticides which inhibit pest from destroying crops in that field
     

     - onyegule ikenna 4---0-2009

  
  

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