Weed Wrangling

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Next to “cash flow” – and the inevitable “cash flow problems” – one of the most popular topics of conversation at country coffee shops, feed mills and other popular rural gathering spots is weeds. It seems that having the biggest, baddest or most exotic weeds carries bragging rights that rival those for growing the earliest tomatoes, the biggest pumpkin or the best sweet corn.

Like death and taxes, weeds are something that all humans, but especially country residents, have in common. Maybe that’s because there are just so darn many weeds. 

Some 18,000 species of plants are native to North America, according to the National Park Service. For the longest time, that didn’t pose any problem. “Our native flora provide the foundation of the American landscape and define the various ecosystems and regions of the country,” the Park Service says. Plants and animals were free and content to live and let live. But then humans arrived on the scene, and everything started changing.

As we tired of simply hunting and gathering, plants that didn’t matter before suddenly became problems. Some 7,000 years before Europeans settled in North America, Native American women stirred the soil with digging sticks and hoes made of bone and wood to rid their corn, beans and squash of unwanted vegetation. These wild plants now competed with crop plants for moisture, nutrients and sunlight. 

“What is a weed?” asked 19th-century transcendental philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. “A plant whose virtues have not been discovered.” 

That may be, Ralphie, old pal. But until those virtues are discovered, weeds are a nightmare that costs American farmers and ranchers, gardeners and country folk more than $5 billion a year in lost yields and control measures.

“Control” is the word that most weed scientists use today to describe our war on weeds. “Management” is a close second. Forget the 1950s rhetoric of “winning the war on weeds.” Mother Nature has armed what we call “weeds” with enough chemical, biological and mechanical weapons to make the mightiest army despair. This awesome artillery ranges from armor- and tire-piercing thorns to skin-blistering poisons.

Weeds have a libido to make even the most amorous rabbits blush. A single pigweed plant routinely produces about 100,000 seeds. Then there is knapweed, a member of the sunflower family, which also includes dandelions and daisies. In only 10 years, the United States Bureau of Land Management estimates, just 100 spotted knapweed seeds can give birth to nearly 4.8 billion new plants that, in turn, produce almost 5.2 trillion new seeds. Leave one piece of purselane in the garden and it grows into a new plant. Roots magically shoot out of the stem of an uprooted galinsoga and burrow into the ground. While galinsoga (gallant soldier) is an indicator of fertile soil, most gardeners see it as a monster right out of Aliens or The Blob.

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