Notes for Foundation Courses. Ch. 1 Lecture 12 – Weeds & Succession (Part 2)

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Just a reminder, these are just notes. There is a lot covered in these lectures such as, examples of case studies, info-graphics and thorough discussions of how ecosystems work etc. I highly encourage you to purse purchasing these Foundation courses to help mother earth and truly be apart of the positive change we as humans can implement to this Earth!

The notes on this section were short but they tied together all the key information from the last lecture up nicely!

@dynamicgreentk/notes-for-foundation-courses-lecture-11---weeds-and-succession-part-1

Quiz results

I will share the two videos from the last post on weeds and succession here.

A big problem in organic agriculture

Weeds

Weeds grow rapidly and will make a lot of seeds which is dispersed wide and far.
Disturbing the system happens typically from tilling which causes the weeds
Nitrate dominated systems encourages weeds.
Weeds will use up nutrients that other plants would had used
The conditions of the soil is typically the cause of weeds

In the 1980s-1990s the chemical companies surveyed various communities about what they considered weeds. They found people considered almost any plant was considered a weed. It was determined that any plant that is out of place is a weed. This is not a useful definition.

Real definition of weeds.

Weeds are early successional plants.
Bacterial dominated soil food web systems with very few other organisms (lacking fungi and higher trophic predators/prey) will select for weeds.
High concentrations of nitrate in soil will encourage weed proliferation
Improving the soil food web will will help crops grows over weeds i.e. increasing soil structure, fungi, and diversity+ numbers of soil food web organisms.
NH4 is associated with fungal dominance
The less the soil is disturbed the less of a problem you will have with weeds