Soil amelioration techniques: How they affect weed dynamics and weed seed burial

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

9-2022

Conference Title

System Solutions for Complex Problems: Proceedings of the 20th Australian Agronomy Conference - 18-22 September 2022

Place of Publication

Toowoomba

Keywords

Weed density, weed management, soil amelioration, soil incorporation, weed seed burial

Disciplines

Natural Resources Management and Policy | Soil Science | Weed Science

Abstract

Soil amelioration has gained great interest in the Western Australia grain-belt over the past decades including incorporating lime, burying repellent soils or disrupting compacted soil. However, relatively little is known about its impact on weeds or the weed seed bank. A series of field and screen house trials were designed to understand better how soil amelioration techniques alter weed dynamics. Results from these trials suggest that the impact of amelioration on weeds varies with the type of mechanical amelioration treatment, proportion of topsoil disturbance and weed seed burial. We found that soil inversion was highly effective in reducing weed density (by 90-100% compared to control) while deep ripping stimulated weed emergence. Moreover, emergence of buried seeds collected from varying soil depths indicated that deep mixing by a rotary spader distributed weed seeds throughout the soil profile, whereas soil inversion by a mouldboard plough buried most weed seed at 10-20 cm. This research gives us a good insight of weeds’ response to soil amelioration and aid in formulating better weed management strategies following amelioration.

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