Weed seed bank: Impacts and management for future crop production

Abstract

The seed bank is the resting place of weed seeds and forms an important component of the life cycle of weeds. Weed seed banks are the only source of future weed populations of annual and some perennial weed species that reproduce by seed only. Therefore, understanding of the weed seeds in the seed bank can be an important component of overall weed control. When weed seeds enter the seed bank, several factors influence the duration for which weed seeds persist. Seeds can sense the surrounding environment in the seed bank and use these stimuli to become dormant or initiate germination. Soil and crop management practices can directly influence the environment of seeds in the seed bank and can thus be used to manage seed longevity and germination behaviour. The weed seed bank serves as a physical history of the past successes and failures of cropping systems, and knowledge of its content (size and species composition) can help producers both anticipate and ameliorate potential impacts of crop-weed competition on crop yield and quality. Eliminating “deposits” to the weed seed bank (also called seed rain) is the best approach to ease future weed management. In the agroecosystems, the soil seed bank is related to weeds, and the knowledge of its size and composition in terms of species can be used in the prediction of future infestations, to build simulation models of population establishment through time and also the definition of soil and cultural management programs, in order to have a rational use of weed control practices.