WEED

any plant growing where it is not wanted. Ever since human beings first attempted the cultivation of plants, they have had to fight the invasion by weeds into areas chosen for crops. Some unwanted plants later were found to have virtues not originally suspected and so were removed from the category of weeds and taken under cultivation. Other cultivated plants, when transplanted to new climates, escaped cultivation and became weeds. The category of weeds thus is ever changing, and the term is a relative one. Because, for various reasons, weeds interfere with man's activities, many ways have been developed for suppressing or eliminating them. These methods vary with the nature of the weed itself, the means at hand for disposal, and the relation of the method to the environment. For financial reasons, methods used on a golf course or a public park cannot be applied on range land or in the forest. Chemicals sprayed on a roadside to eliminate unsightly weeds that constitute a fire or traffic hazard are not proper for use on cropland. And mulching, used to keep down weeds in a home garden, is not feasible on large farms. Weed control, in any event, has become a highly specialized activity employing thousands of trained persons. Universities and agricultural colleges teach courses in weed control, and industry provides the necessary technology. Governmental workers and private individuals are engaged daily in the practice of weed control because the growing of food and fibre crops depends on it for current levels of production. Poison oak (Toxicodendron diversiloba). The many reasons for controlling weeds become more complex with the increasing development of technology. Plants become weeds as a function of time and place. Tall weeds on roadsides were no problem in the horse-and-buggy days, but today they obscure vision on roads built for speed and make death traps of intersections. Sharp-edged grasses are nominal nuisances in a cow pasture; when the area is converted to a golf course or a public park, they become insufferable. Poison oak (see photograph) is rather a pleasant shrub on a sunny hillside in the open country; in a Boy Scout camp ground it is a definite health hazard. And nothing is more pleasant than the waving heads of grass on the hillside in spring. But when the hillside becomes a tank farm for storage of oil the fire hazard becomes serious in summer. Such examples could be given ad infinitum to cover every aspect of agriculture, forestry, highway, waterway and public land management, arboretum, park and golf-course care, and finally home landscape maintenance. Weeds compete with crop plants for water, light, and nutrients. Weeds of range lands and pastures may be unpalatable to animals, or even poisonous; they may cause injuries, as with lodging of foxtails (Alopecurus species) in horses' mouths; they may lower values of animal products, as in the cases of cockleburs (Xanthium species) in wool; they may add to the burden of animal care, as when horses graze in tarweeds (Madia species) and become covered with a black, sticky mess. Many weeds are hosts of plant disease organisms. Examples are prickly lettuce (Lactuca scariola) and sowthistle (Sonchus species) that serve as hosts for downy mildew; wild mustards (Brassica species) that host clubroot of cabbage; and saltbrush (Atriplex species) and Russian thistle, in which curly top virus overwinters, to be carried to sugar beets by leafhoppers. Many weeds are hosts of insect pests. Modern weed control can be classified as mechanical, chemical, or biological.