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weed counts with cultural control?



I'm doing research on cultural weed management and we're trying to 
estimate weed populations in large plots (.25 acres) that have had 
different kinds of weed management - cultivation, mulch, mulch+cultivation.

We are having difficulty finding a method for accurately estimating and 
reporting the impact that the different methods are having on the weeds 
because the weeds are extremely spotty in some plots (very heavy 
populations in a few scattered areas - mulched trt.), more evenly 
distributed but only in the rows (cultivated trt.) and somewhere in 
between (mulch+cultivation).

Any good ideas out there for an efficient and accurate count of weeds in 
these kinds of situations?  We had hoped to count and take biomass from 
randomly selected "representative" areas within the plots, but this method 
will not work with these treatments because it is too difficult to 
determine what is representative....and a random count loses too much 
information about what is actually happening out there.

Short of counting and harvesting large areas (which we don't have the 
resources to do), we're at loss as to how to best measure weed growth and 
distribution.

I'd especially appreciate references to methods that work in these kinds 
of situations.

Thanks!


Laura Lengnick
Farming Systems Project
Beltsville Agriculture Research Center
Beltsville, MD