- Posted By: Brad Hanson
- Written by: Weed Science Society of America
Article reposted from the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) website. The pdf version of the article is attached at the bottom of the post.
Take care,
Brad
http://www.wssa.net/index.htm
http://www.wssa.net/WSSA/PressRoom/WSSA_Compost_WeedFree.htm
Time, temperature and turning are critical factors
Compost can be a gardener's best friend. It can deliver dramatic improvements in soil quality and nutrients to nourish your plants throughout the growing season. But unless you use the right techniques,...
- Author: Brad Hanson
Today I thought I'd share a few photos of a weed that is becoming more common in orchards in some areas of the Central Valley. I've gotten a few calls and ran across a few infestations of cutleaf eveningprimrose (Oenothera laciniata). This photo was taken in an almond orchard near Shafter, CA in early-April when it was about 6 inches across.
Weeds of California and Other Western States describes cutleaf eveningprimrose as a spreading to erect annual, biennial, or short lived perennial. At the early stages, this plant is usually sparsely hairy and leaf margins can be smooth or toothed. As the plant gets bigger and begins to spread, the leaf margins are usually deeply lobed (ie. "cutleaf"). The flowers are...
- Author: Brad Hanson
I visited a couple of almond orchard trials this week and thought I'd share a few photos.
First, I ran across a weed that I haven't encountered before - alkali mallow (Malvella leprosa). This weed is also known as: alkali sida, creeping mallow, dollar weed, ivy-leaf sida, star mallow, white mallow, and whiteweed.
When I first saw the weed emerging in these plots, I thought it was one of the annual mallows commonly found in orchards such as common mallow, bull mallow, little mallow or high mallow (Malva neglecta, M nicaeensis, M. parviflora, and M. sylvestris, respectively). In contrast to those more familiar weeds, alkali mallow is a perennial plant that has a deep and extensive system of...
- Author: Brad Hanson
Early winter is is a good time of year to talk about another landscape weed problem - catchweed bedstraw (Galium aperine) also known as cleavers in much of the rest of the world (among many other names).
In California, bedstraw is summer or winter annual and we are starting to see the beginning of the winter germination flush in the Davis area. We usually see a lot of bedstraw germiantion in the early winter after the rain starts and the soils start to cool; however, there is often a secondary flush of germination in the late winter and earlys spring (Feb-March). Bedstraw will grow into the summer but really doesn't do very well in the hottest times of the year. It tends to complete its lifecycle by...
- Author: Brad Hanson
Recently I was reminded that there is no more important fundamental to weed control than being able to identify your weed problem.
This summer, I moved to a different house and have slowly been working on little projects that arise. One of these has been figuring out what weed problems I bought along with the house – in my case, this has (so far) turned out to be creeping woodsorell (Oxalis corniculata) in my lawn areas and Bermuda buttercup (Oxalis pes-caprae) almost everywhere else (beds, garden, potted plants)! I’ll save my trials and tribulations with Oxalis management for another day; however, UC-IPM has a nice pest management guideline on Oxalis authored by LeStrange, Elmore, and Cudney here: