Abstract
Weed species within arable farming systems act as a source of food and provide habitat for various taxa at higher trophic levels. Using field experiments in winter wheat, we investigated whether selective herbicides can be used as a potential tool for sustaining beneficial, less competitive weed species and rare species of high conservation value while controlling highly competitive weed species. We tested three selective herbicides with different active ingredients (amidosulfuron + iodosulfuron, fluroxypyr, mecoprop-P) at two application rates. We analysed cover of selected focal species (Centaurea cyanus and Papaver rhoeas) as well as weed species richness, winter wheat yield and weed community composition as influenced by herbicide treatments. Herbicide treatments involving fluroxypyr generally allowed for the selective retention of the regionally threatened weed species C. cyanus and P. rhoeas as a beneficial species of high value for associated trophic level and provided considerable control of the competitive species G. aparine. Herbicide treatments significantly affected weed species composition. The PRC method clearly showed the time-dependent herbicide treatment effects on weed community composition and allowed an estimate of the variance in species composition that is explained by the herbicide treatments. Our results indicated that applying selective herbicides can provide a feasible option for in-crop management of weed diversity by retention of beneficial or rare weed species occurring at moderate densities and control of highly-competitive weeds. However, weed control strategies must be tailored to site-specific conditions to account for increased abundance of competitive species.
Zusammenfassung
Unkräuter können Ressource und Habitat für nützliche Arten höherer trophischer Ebenen bereitstellen. Anhand von Feldversuchen in Winterweizen wurde der Einsatz selektiver Herbizide zur Förderung nützlicher, weniger konkurrenzstarker und seltener Unkrautarten bei gleichzeitiger Kontrolle von konkurrenzstarken Unkrautarten untersucht. Es wurden drei selektive Herbizide (Amidosulfuron + Iodosulfuron, Fluroxypyr, Mecoprop-P) anhand von zwei Aufwandmengen getestet. Dabei wurden der Deckungsgrad der untersuchten Arten (Centaurea cyanus und Papaver rhoeas), die Gesamtartenzahl, der Winterweizenertrag sowie die Zusammensetzung der Unkrautpopulation analysiert. Die Applikation von Fluroxypyr erwies sich als geeignet für sowohl die Erhaltung der regional bedrohten Art C. cyanus und der Art P. rhoeas, die eine hohe Bedeutung für höhere trophischen Ebenen aufweist, als auch für die Bekämpfung der konkurrenzstarken Art G. aparine. Die Herbizidbehandlungen hatten einen signifikanten Einfluss auf die Zusammensetzung der Unkrautpopulationen. Die multivariate Principal Response Curve (PRC) Methode veranschaulichte die Auswirkungen der Herbizidbehandlungen auf die Populationszusammensetzung in Abhängigkeit von der Versuchslaufzeit und ermöglichte zudem eine Abschätzung der durch die Herbizidbehandlungen erklärten Varianz. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass selektive Herbizide eingesetzt werden können, um seltene oder nützliche Unkrautarten zu erhalten und konkurrenzstarke Arten zu bekämpfen. Allerdings sollte die jeweilige Behandlung situationsspezifisch an die vorhandenen Unkrautarten angepasst werden um ein erhöhtes Aufkommen von konkurrenzstarken Arten zu vermeiden.
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Ulber, L., Steinmann, HH. & Klimek, S. Using selective herbicides to manage beneficial and rare weed species in winter wheat. J Plant Dis Prot 117, 233–239 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03356366
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03356366