UC Weed Science (weed control, management, ecology, and minutia)

Summer is right around the corner. The mild weather we've recently experienced following a rich rainy season is the perfect combination for the luscious growth we see in lawns and landscapes.

In what has been dubbed dandelion-gate, members of the Washington State legislature spent 20 minutes complaining about weeds on the capital's lawn In all the years I've been here I've never seen so many dandelions all over, Sen. Mike Padden (R) said.

Mosquito research by Maribel Portilla and Sharon Lawler recently included an experiment on how Egeria, or Brazilian water weed, affects mosquito populations. Egeria is a submersed aquatic weed that can cause problems in channels and irrigation waterways.

We are a little over a month into the processing tomato season. I have received a couple of farm calls regarding herbicide damage or symptoms originally thought to be diseases. The first was trifluralin injury to young tomato plants.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, called a weed a plant whose virtues that have not yet been discovered. I disagree, and yet generally speaking he is correct, what we call a weed is in the eye of the beholder, a plant that it is not helpful, useful or wanted.