Focus on ecological weed management: what is hindering adoption?

L BASTIAANS*, R PAOLINI 1 & D T BAUMANN

*Crop and Weed Ecology Group, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands, Department of Vegetables Production, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy, and Agroscope ACW, Wa denswil, Switzerland Received 17 January 2008 Revised version accepted 11 July 2008

Summary
Despite increased concerns regarding the heavy reliance of many cropping systems on chemical weed control, adoption of ecological weed management practices is only steadily progressing. For this reason, this paper reects on both the possibilities and limitations of cultural weed control practices. Cultural weed control utilises a number of principles, predominantly: (i) a reduced recruitment of weed seedlings from the soil seedbank, (ii) an alteration of cropweed competitive relations to the benet of the crop and (iii) a gradual reduction of the size of the weed seedbank. Compared with chemical control, the general applicability, reliability and ecacy of most measures is only moderate, and consequently, cultural control strategies need to

consist of a combination of measures, resulting in increased systems complexity. Combined with the trade-os connected to some of the measures, this hampers large-scale implementation. It is argued that tailoring cultural weed management strategies to the needs and skills of individual farmers would be an important step forward. Research can aid in improving the utilisation of cultural weed control strategies by focussing on a broadening of the range of available measures and by providing clear quantitative insight in ecacy, variability in outcome and trade-os of these measures. Keywords: competition, cultural control, curative control, integrated crop management, modelling, population dynamics.

BASTIAANS L, PAOLINI R & BAUMANN DT (2008). Focus on ecological weed management: what is hindering adoption? Weed Research 48, 481491.

Introduction
Weeds are an important constraint in agricultural production systems (e.g. Oerke, 2006). Acting at the same trophic level as the crop, weeds capture a part of the available resources that are essential for plant growth. Inevitably, leaving weeds uncontrolled will sooner or later lead to considerable reductions in crop yield. Control eorts are generally directed towards weed seedlings in the period just prior to, or shortly after, crop establishment. During these early stages, the weeds will not yet have laid ground for serious reductions in crop production, whereas the absence of a true crop canopy enables a well-targeted control operation. Additionally, controlling seedlings is often far easier than killing or removing taller and more developed weed

plants. Weed plants emerging during later stages of crop development are often considered less important, as their relative competitive ability is too weak to cause a major reduction in the production of the current crop. Seed production of those weeds contributes to future weed infestations, but in the presence of highly eective, reliable and relatively cheap control options, this is generally not considered a major threat. It is often the availability of chemical control that allows farmers to envisage the weed problem in such a short-term perspective and in relative isolation from other crop management aspects. Introduction of herbicidal control in the 1940s was one of the major triggers of the intensication of agricultural production systems, most notably characterised by a tremendous increase in labour-productivity.

Correspondence: L Bastiaans, Crop and Weed Ecology Group, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, PO Box 430, 6700 AK Wageningen, the Netherlands. Tel: (+31) 317 484770; Fax: (+31) 317 485572; E-mail: lammert.bastiaans@wur.nl 1 Deceased 2008 The Authors Journal Compilation 2008 European Weed Research Society Weed Research 48, 481491

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For this reason, chemical weed control rapidly evolved into the standard approach, making other management options for regulating weed population size far less important. The heavy reliance on chemical weed control is nowadays considered objectionable (e.g. Liebman, 2001). This is rst because a heavy reliance implies extensive use of compounds with a potential negative side-eect on food safety, public health and the environment (e.g. Richards et al., 1987; Ying & Williams, 1999). Second, cropping systems with a narrow focus on herbicidal control are becoming increasingly vulnerable, as herbicide resistance (e.g. Moss, 2003) and stricter regulations with regard to herbicides (e.g. Sass & Colangelo, 2006) are frequently creating situations where part of the weed community can no longer be controlled by chemical means. Finally, the increased interest in organic agriculture calls for alternative solutions. Accordingly, minimising the use of herbicides has developed into an important issue in weed management ` rberi & Krop, 2002). As a result, a and research (Ba number of directions have evolved, of which a more ecient use of herbicides is a rst track. This strategy can be implemented through technological improvements in application technology (e.g. Brown et al., 2007). Further options for enhancing the eciency of herbicides include improved application timing (e.g. Riethmuller-Haage et al., 2007), the use of factoradjusted dosages (e.g. Thorp & Tian, 2004) and patch spraying (e.g. Gerhards & Christensen, 2003). A second strategy is to focus more on alternative curative control technologies, like biological and mechanical weed control (e.g. Kurstjens, 2002; Hatcher & Melander, 2003). Biological control gained considerable momentum in the 1970s (Charudattan & Dinoor, 2000). With the classical approach being less suitable for controlling weeds in cropping systems, more emphasis was put on the bioherbicide approach. Although the eorts resulted in commercial registration of some products, bioherbicides never managed to occupy a sizeable share of the market. One problem has been that the reliability of eld ecacy is not at levels comparable with that of herbicides (e.g. Hallett, 2005). Mechanical weed control has received considerable attention in the last decade. A major breakthrough has been the development of technologies for controlling weeds in the crop row (e.g. Kurstjens & Bleeker, 2000), which has long been the Achilles heel of mechanical control. Still, the strong dependency on weather conditions, as well as the damage to soil structure associated with frequent application of mechanical control makes a heavy reliance on this technology undesirable. Cultural weed control, also referred to as the ecological management of weeds, is a third track (e.g. Buhler, 1996; Mortensen et al., 2000). Cultural control can be described

as any adjustment or modication to the general management of the crop or cropping systems that contributes to the regulation of weed populations and reduces the negative impact of weeds on crop production. It particularly involves the tactical and strategic level of decision making. As such, cultural weed control can be envisaged as a typical component of integrated crop management, where the focus is not only on maximisation of crop production, but also the optimisation of resource use and the minimisation of external inputs (Harwood, 1990). As options for biological control are limited, a complete reliance on mechanical control is undesirable and herbicidal control is prohibited, cultural control seems particularly relevant for organic agriculture. However, despite the existence of a large variety of cultural control measures, weeds are still mentioned as the major production-related bottleneck in organic agriculture and are also identied as the main reason for conventional farmers not to convert to organic farming (Kloen & Daniels, 2000). Also, in conventional agriculture, cultural control has not managed to obtain rm footing, despite the desire to reduce the strong reliance on chemical control. The objective of this paper was to reect on the causes that have prevented a large-scale introduction and application of ecological weed management. The paper starts with classifying cultural control practices according to three basic principles that illustrate the main options for dealing with weeds outside of a curative approach. Thereafter, some of the main obstacles for applying cultural weed control measures are considered. In the nal section, the future of ecological weed management is discussed and dierences between curative and cultural weed control strategies are taken as a lead for identifying priority areas for research that should result in a better exploitation of cultural weed control principles.

Ecological weed management principles

Crops and weeds compete for shared resources like light, water and nutrients. If resource supply is insucient to meet the combined demand of crop and weeds, resource capture by weeds will result in a reduced growth and production of the crop. Often, the relation between relative yield loss (YL) because of weed competition and weed plant density can be accurately described by a simple hyperbolic function (Cousens, 1985). If highweed plant densities give rise to complete crop failure, this relation looks like: YL iNw 1 iNw

in which YL is the relative yield loss because of weed competition, Nw is the weed plant density and i is the

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initial slope of the curve relating YL to weed plant density, indicating the YL per unit weed plant density as Nw 0. Weed management aims at reducing the negative eect of weeds on crop production. In Fig. 1, the hyperbolic YLweed density curve is used to illustrate various options for minimizing the negative eect of weeds on crop production. For clarity, a second abscissa is introduced, representing seedbank density. Following from the equation, basically two directions for minimisation of yield reduction can be exploited: obtaining a reduced weed plant density (Nw) or obtaining a reduced impact per unit weed plant density (i). Within a growing season, a reduction in weed plant density can, apart from curative control (Fig. 1A), be obtained through a reduced recruitment of weed seeds from the soil seedbank (Fig. 1B), whereas a reduced impact per unit weed plant density can be obtained through manipulation of the competitive relation between crop and weed (Fig. 1C). A longer term strategy for obtaining a reduced weed plant density is to promote a gradual depletion of the soil seedbank (Fig. 1D).

Reduced recruitment

YL

A number of options arise for hindering the recruitment of seedlings from the soil seedbank; Photocontrol is one such option. Seeds of many annual weed species require a light-stimulus to trigger germination (Bartley & Frankland, 1982). Consequently, night-time soil cultivation or covering tillage-equipment with black plastic or non-light transmitting cloth have regularly been investigated as a means to reduce weed emergence (Hartmann & Nezadal, 1990; Ascard, 1994; Riemens et al., 2007). Although in some instances, the weed densities were substantially reduced, the variability in outcome was another important observation. After germination, the seeds initially rely on the energy stored in the endosperm. Consequently, successful emergence depends on factors like soil compaction, burial depth and seed size (Vleeshouwers, 1997). Mulching increases the physical barrier that has to be overcome by the germinated seeds and is therefore another means to achieve a reduced establishment of weed plants. For mulches consisting of decaying fresh plant material, the release of allelochemicals strengthens the inhibitory eects on weed seed germination and early growth (Weston, 1996; Kruidhof et al., 2008). Liebman and Davis (2000) pointed at the selective potential of cover crop residue material, as red clover extracts inhibited radicle growth of small-seeded weed species much stronger than that of large-seeded crop species.
Improved crop-competitiveness

Nw Sw
C
D

YL

Nw Sw Sw
Fig. 1 The hyperbolic yield loss (YL) weed density relation used to illustrate various principles for reducing YL due to weeds. (A) Curative control; killing or removal of weed plants; (B) reduced recruitment of weed seedlings from the soil seedbank; (C) alteration of cropweed competitive relations to the benet of the crop; (D) gradual reduction or depletion of the weed seedbank in the soil. Thick arrows represent the major effect of a specic intervention. Weed density is expressed in two ways: as weed plant density (Nw) and as seedbank density (Sw), each represented by a different abscissa.

Competitive relations between crop and weed plants do not just rely on species characteristics. Relative time of emergence, for instance, is an important determinant of competitive ability, as an early emergence generates an improved access to the available resources. On top of that, small initial size dierences tend to steadily enlarge over time, as particularly competition for light is size asymmetric (Weiner, 1986). Transplanting is one means to establish the desired initial size dierences between crop and weed plants. Selection of the largest seeds and seed priming are other means of providing crop plants a favourable starting position. Row placement of fertilizers can also be used to improve the relative competitive ability of crop plants (Petersen, 2005). In this case, rather than a temporal advantage, crop plants are favoured by creating a spatial advantage in resource accessibility. An increased competitiveness can also be obtained through breeding. After herbicides became available, the interest for competitive ability was lost and breeding was mainly focussed on yield and disease resistance. More recently, a regained interest is observed and the research

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is focussed on resolving the characteristics responsible for competitiveness, on the heritability of these characteristics and on identifying an easy method to select characteristics that are indicative for competitiveness to simplify the selection process (Lemerle et al., 2001; Zhao et al., 2006; Hansen et al., 2008). Apart from increasing the competitive ability at the individual plant level, improved competitiveness of the crop can also be gained from modications at the population level. An increased seeding rate is an obvious example of this (Zhao et al., 2007). Lately, the advantages of a more homogeneous crop spatial arrangement have been investigated (Olsen et al., 2005). In addition, the weed suppressing ability of a weakly competitive crop canopy can be increased by the addition of a more competitive second crop (Baumann et al., 2000).
Reduced seedbank size

2004). Crop rotation is another important factor, as it improves diversity and prevents the development of a weed population that is perfectly tuned with the growing cycle of a particular crop (Streibig, 1979). Creating a-synchrony between the life cycles of weed and crop should create a higher fatal germination fraction and also situations where harvest operations can remove weeds that have not yet been able to set seed (Anderson, 2007).

Obstacles for implementation

Implementation of ecological weed management seems to be direct, but obviously a number of factors are hindering a broad introduction. The following examples illustrate some of the limitations that are encountered. In particular, the issues related to applicability, ecacy, reliability and compatibility with curative weed control measures are discussed. Attention is also given to conicts that arise if cropping practices benecial to weed management have adverse eects on other objectives.
General applicability

For many of the weeds that constitute the weed community of an arable production eld, the seeds are stored in the soil seedbank. Depletion of this weed seedbank can be obtained by increasing the losses (output), by reducing the input or through a combination of both. Predation, decay and germination are the main processes that contribute to a reduction in seedbank size (Gallandt, 2006). Seed predation has been recognised as an important means of seed mortality, particularly in the period following seed shed (Westerman et al., 2003; Mauchline et al., 2005). Use of no-till systems and delaying post-harvest tillage operations extend the period during which the seeds are exposed to seed predators. Seed predator numbers may be enhanced by creating better opportunities for shelter and additional food (Landis et al., 2005). Processes like microbial decay are the cause of the remaining vulnerability of seeds after burial. So far, the relation between microbial activity and microbial composition of the soil and seed decay is poorly understood (Kremer, 1993; Kennedy, 1999). Consequently, clear directions for crop and soil management favouring the development of so-called weed-suppressive soils are lacking. Seeds also leave the seedbank through germination. Fatal germination can be regarded as the main mechanism behind the use of stale seedbeds (Bond & Grundy, 2001). By creating an additional time lapse between seedbed preparation and seeding, the rst weed ush can be easily controlled. Restricting the production of new seeds (inputs) is another option. As competition is a mutual interaction between plants, improving the competitive ability of the crop not only diminishes crop yield reduction but also results in reduced weed seed production (Grundy et al.,

Herbicides usually aect fundamental plant processes and are therefore potentially detrimental for both weeds and crops. This means that for post-emergence application, selectivity is essential. Additionally, the persistence of some of the older herbicides in soil is such that it is not always advisable to grow a sensitive crop in the following year. Despite these examples, opportunities for applying chemical control are usually very broad and t into a wide range of cropping systems. In contrast, the application of cultural control is often subject to certain restrictions. Some of the measures, like an increased seeding rate for example, are crop specic. When grown at a higher density, not only the weed suppressive ability of the crop as a whole, but also the intra-specic competition among individual crop plants increases. For some crops, like small-grain cereals, this has no serious consequences and crop yield is maintained. For other crops, like maize and Brussels sprouts, such an increased level of competition negatively aects the dry matter that is allocated to the marketable plant parts (De Wit et al., 1979). Consequently, there is an optimum plant density at which the maximum marketable yield will be obtained and an increase in seeding rate beyond this optimum will have direct negative consequences for yield. Another example of crop-specicity was shown by Van Delden et al. (2002). They tested whether an increased soil nitrogen supply would be able to reduce the growth of late-emerging weeds. The additional

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nitrogen was expected to enhance canopy leaf area development and thereby reduce the availability of light for weed growth. This strategy was successfully applied in potato, but in spring wheat, the growth and seed production of Stellaria media increased following higher nitrogen supply rates. Two major dierences were observed between both crops. First, the total nitrogen uptake of the cereal crop was much larger than that of the potato crop, resulting in lower soil nitrogen availability. Second, maximum canopy light interception for potato was nearly 100%, but considerably lower maximum levels were observed for wheat. Based on these observations it was concluded that in wheat the growth of S. media was nitrogen limited, whereas in potato its growth was light limited. Application of extra nitrogen thus lifted the major growth limitation of S. media in the cereal crop, whereas it further strengthened the growth limitation of the weed in the potato crop, as light availability for the weed only continued to decrease with increased nitrogen supply. For some cultural control measures, successful application is region specic. As mentioned before, the crux of the stale seedbed technique is to remove the weed ush that follows seedbed preparation but before the crop is planted. This implies that for successful application, cropping should be delayed until after the main ush of weed emergence. This is an important reason why the method is not very widely adopted in the Mediterranean region. In central Italy for instance, the rainfall is concentrated in the period ranging from October till March. Particularly under rain-fed conditions, delayed sowing of spring-sown crops, like sunower, will result in severe reductions in crop yield from water shortage during growth. This means that alleviation of the weed problem causes the crop to suer from water stress. In other situations, socio-economic conditions determine the feasibility of cultural control measures. In traditional irrigated rice systems, transplanting has long been successfully applied to minimise the risk of crop YL because of the competition from weeds. Its success is based on the size dierential between crop and weeds and on the suppressive eect of standing water on weed growth at crop establishment. This practice, however, is currently seriously under pressure. Shortage of on-farm labour, coupled with increasing labour cost and scarcity of fresh water are threatening the popularity of transplanting. Changing the establishment system from transplanting, with a considerable ow of water during land preparation (3501500 mm), to direct seeding is an obvious component of nearly all newly developed systems (e.g. Tuong et al., 2005). Consequently, weed management has to be based on other measures (Rao et al., 2007).

Efcacy and reliability

Herbicides are generally highly eective and reliable means of weed control. This is not surprising, as companies are only interested in production and marketing of compounds for which, under a broad range of eld conditions, relatively high kill rates can be guaranteed. Individual cultural control measures on their own are generally not able to generate comparable eects. Typically, with ecological weed management, ecacy has to come from a combination of methods, which Liebman and Gallandt (1997) referred to as the use of many little hammers. Compared with the use of a single control measure, a strategy consisting of many small components has clear advantages. Liebman and Gallandt (1997) rightfully referred to the reduced risk of serious crop loss, as the burden of protection is spread over several methods. They also pointed at the reduced rate at which resistance against a method will develop, as a consequence of the minimal exposure of the weed community to any single tactic. On the other hand, the combined use of a number of dierent components obviously increases the complexity of the weed management system and results in a system that will be more dicult to manage. Whether the components in combination will be suciently eective is often dicult to tell, as the ecacy of individual components, let alone the interaction between various measures, has not been studied in great detail. Such evaluations are complex, as these measures should not only be appraised for their immediate eect within a single season, but also for their contribution to the long-term suppression of weed populations. Apart from ecacy, it is the reliability of the measures that matters. With many of the measures, reliability, referring to a minimum variability in weed control outcome, is rather weak. For night-time cultivation, Ascard (1994) reported reductions in weed emergence ranging from hardly any to up to two-thirds of the weed population. These varying eects of photocontrol and the rather unpredictable interactions of dierent environmental factors were identied as major drawbacks of the method. Likewise, Rasmussen et al. (1996) reported clear interactions of year and fertilisation level on the eect of fertiliser placement. Whereas the average reduction in weed biomass of fertiliser placement close to the crop row was 55%, individual results varied from no eect at all to reductions of over 90%. Similarly, for the use of stale seedbeds followed by pre-planting weed control, Riemens et al. (2007) reported reductions during crop growth between 43% and 83%. Variable results were also reported for crop spatial arrangement. Whereas Olsen et al. (2005) reported reductions in weed biomass of 38% and

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27% relative to row planting of wheat for a uniform and a random sowing pattern respectively, Medd et al. (1985) did not nd any eect of wheat spatial arrangement on suppression of Lolium rigidum at a range of crop plant densities. With such high levels of variability, farmers do not know what to expect, and clearly this uncertainty hampers implementation.
Compatibility with curative control

Conicting objectives

As cultural control is often not sucient to make direct control completely redundant, it is important that application of these measures does not interfere with the possibilities to apply curative control measures. For instance, with spring wheat, a uniform planting pattern provided better weed control than row planting (Weiner et al., 2001). Dierences created by changes in spatial arrangement, however, were moderate, and clearly not sucient to prevent the necessity for further weed control. With a uniform planting pattern, options for mechanical control are restricted to harrowing, whereas with row planting, specically at larger row distances, hoeing is another option. Evaluation of a specic cultural control measure should thus be conducted within the context of the entire weed management strategy. A more uniform planting pattern was also considered as a component of the weed management in organic sugar beet production (Wevers & Bastiaans, 2004). Taking a row distance of 50 cm and a total plant number of 100 000 plants ha)1 results in an average plant distance within the row of 20 cm. A more uniform planting pattern can thus be obtained by shortening the distance between the rows and widening the plant distance in the row. Experiments showed that such a planting pattern indeed resulted in a better suppression of weeds growing in between the rows. Weed growth in the row was not signicantly affected. Consequently, the benets of a more uniform planting pattern were marginal as the weeds in between the rows can easily be controlled by mechanical means. Consultation with farmers revealed that they were particularly critical towards the use of a narrower row conguration, as this would increase the total row length per unit area. They argued that in a sugar beet crop the weeds emerging in the crop row are the main burden, as these weeds have to be removed through labour intensive hand weeding and are therefore responsible for the largest control costs. Follow-up experiments were therefore focussed on the consequences of an increased row width for yielding ability. These experiments clearly showed that row width can be markedly increased, as long as total plant number per unit area is maintained. This again demonstrates that measures should be evaluated in a systems context.

The previous examples already illustrate that evaluation of cultural control measures should not just be focussed on weed management aspects, as the adjustment of general crop management might be at the cost of other objectives. Already at the onset of the Green Revolution, Donald (1968) recognised the conict between yield and weed suppressive ability. The newly developed, short-statured, high-yielding cereal varieties with their erectophile leaf arrangement were far less competitive than the traditional, tall, low-yielding varieties with planophile leaves. Obviously, the modications in plant morphology, particularly plant height and leaf arrangement, had a clear link with the reduced competitiveness of the newly developed varieties. At the same time, these characteristics were closely connected with the spectacular increases in yield potential of the newly developed varieties. The reduced plant height contributed to an increased harvest index, whereas the erectophile leaf arrangement resulted in improved light utilisation eciency, following from a more even distribution of light within the canopy. Consequently, utilisation of the typical characteristics of the more traditional varieties for the development of weed competitive varieties is at the risk of lowering yield potential. A similar conict between yield and weed suppressive ability was encountered in the development of a leekcelery intercropping system, in which the more leafy celery was added to a leek crop to improve the competitive ability of the canopy. The crops were planted in a row-based replacement design. Increasing the proportion of celery in the intercrop resulted in improved weed suppression, but at the same time this caused a strong competitive pressure on leek. Not only crop yield, but also individual plant size of leek, an important quality characteristic, was seriously decreased (Baumann et al., 2001). Simulation modelling was used as a means to quantify the systems responses to changes in leek and celery planting density (Baumann et al., 2002a). These relations were then used to determine the overall planting density and mixing ratio of the intercrop that provided the optimum combination of yield, product quality and weed suppression (Baumann et al., 2002b). Conicts might also arise with regard to the prevention of other biotic stress factors. Obtaining a faster canopy closure through the use of an increased seeding rate is a well-established method for improving the competitiveness of the crop, relative to that of the weeds. An increased seeding rate does, however, also aect the micro-climate of the canopy. A denser canopy will create more humid conditions, as the lack of openness will delay the drying of the canopy after sunrise. This might

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seriously increase the risk of infection with fungal pathogens (Debaeke et al., 2003). Spores of many of these pathogens require a minimum leaf wetness period for successful germination and penetration of their host (Zadoks & Schein, 1979). This implies that reducing the negative consequences of weeds increases the risk of an attack by other biotic stress factors. These conicting objectives complicate the development of holistic management strategies.

Towards tailor-made weed management strategies

In the last decades, herbicides have remained the major weed control strategy in many cropping systems, in spite of increased concerns regarding the heavy reliance on chemical weed control. Although cultural control is often mentioned as an alternative, adoption of ecological weed management is only slowly progressing and clearly the obstacles mentioned in the previous section play a role in this. For the future of ecological weed management, it is important to recognise which obstacles are of major concern. The observation that cultural control in most instances does not make direct weed control completely redundant, raises the question whether ecological weed management is useful at all. For organic systems, the answer is quite clear. Van Der Schans and Bleeker (2006) showed a proportional relation between weed infestation level and the time required for hand-weeding, implying that for these systems, every lessening of the weed pressure results in a reduction of the time required for the costly practice of hand-weeding. Moreover, in conventional systems, there are numerous examples that show that smaller weed populations require a less intensive mortality pressure to achieve desirable levels of weed control (e.g. Dieleman et al., 1999). In these situations, the higher ecacies of direct weed control obtained at lower weed density levels can be considered a bonus of the cultural control measures that helped realise the reduced density levels. Another obstacle was the diculty to combine cultural and direct control measures. However, clearly both methodologies are not at odds in all situations. For instance, the strategies that give crop plants a better competitive position relative to weeds, like seed priming and transplanting, favour the application of intra-row weed control devices, like the nger weeder and the torsion weeder (e.g. Van Der Weide et al., 2008). As selectivity is largely based on anchorage, with these devices, any cultural control method that results in more pronounced size dierences between crop and weed will greatly contribute to a successful application. Bleeker et al. (2007) even went one step further. They noted that

modern intra-row weeders of which the de-activation of the weeding tool was based on detection of plant position, were not suitable for sown onions. The sensing equipment was not suciently accurate to detect small individual onion plants. For this reason, they investigated the possibilities of cluster sowing, where small clusters of onion plants are alternated with open spaces in between. The planting pattern of the crop was thus adjusted with no other intention than to facilitate the use of a specic curative control option. The overall conclusion is that in some instances, but clearly not in all, adjustment of standard cropping practices is hindering the application of curative control. A further important observation with regard to cultural control is that improvements with respect to weed management might be at the cost of the fullment of other objectives. However, this situation is not necessarily dierent from the application of chemical control. It has been reported that herbicides not only reduce weed pressure, but might also have a direct negative eect on crop yield (Kempenaar et al., 2004). Moreover, cultural control measures do not necessarily imply a penalty on yield. For rice cultivars, early growth characteristics were shown to contain the highest potential for improving weed competitiveness and for these traits no obvious trade-os with yielding ability were observed (Bastiaans et al., 1997). Field experiments using 40 rice cultivars conrmed that rapid early vegetative growth is crucial to strong weed-suppressive ability and that yield potential and weed-suppressive ability are positively correlated (Zhao et al., 2006). Most important is the realisation that a strong focus on cultural control turns the development of a weed management strategy into an optimisation process. Positive contributions to weed management have to be weighed against negative consequences, regarding the realisation of other objectives. The corner stones of such optimisation procedures are solid quantitative estimates of how much is gained for one objective by relaxing another. Additionally, such quantitative estimates are also the only way to establish the true costs of ecological weed management practices. Individual cultural control measures are far less eective than single herbicide applications and their strength has to come from a combination of measures. This observation has a number of important implications. First of all, there is the economic perspective. Measures with a relatively low ecacy, in combination with the earlier mentioned potential negative trade-os and the need to employ a number of measures, all have a negative eect on the cost:benet ratio of weed management. When, in addition to this, the variability in outcome of ecological weed management is taken into account, one can see some major hurdles arising

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that are critical to broad adoption, particularly in situations where cheap and eective herbicides can be used instead. Increasing the ecacy and minimising the unpredictability of the outcome of cultural control measures calls for a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the various measures. Implicitly, the previous observation also raises the need for a broad range of cultural control measures. Although a wide spectrum of potential measures seems available, the limitations with regard to general applicability and the previously discussed need for compatibility with direct weed control measures bring about a reduction in actual measures. Additionally, the personal preferences of individual farmers are narrowing the spectrum of available measures even further. This calls for a continuous eort to keep the search for new cultural control technologies going. Another consequence of the need to build a strategy on a combination of measures is increased systems complexity. As complex systems are more dicult to handle, this is probably also one of the more serious causes hampering the adoption of ecological management by farmers. It is to be expected that weed management strategies based on cultural control principles are far more likely to be adopted if they are tailormade and precisely matched to the needs and skills of the individual farmer. For example, for farmers with green ngers the optimal strategy will be a dierent one than for farmers with a strong interest in mechanisation. Clearly, the development of tailor-made holistic weed management strategies composed of cultural control measures requires a close interaction between research and farmers, as the ultimate strategy should t the farmer, particularly with regard to issues like required skills, interest and risk perception. Such an activity, at the interface of research and extension, calls for a participatory approach. Particularly on-farm research programs that last for at least a number of years (e.g. Exner et al., 1996) and crop rotational studies on experimental farms (e.g. Rasmussen et al., 2006) are appropriate for the evaluation and gradual improvement of entire weed management strategies.

The role of fundamental research

A nal question is how more fundamental research can contribute to the development of tailor-made weed management strategies. Based on the previous section, two important elds of research appear. The rst one deals with improved insight in, and a broadening of the range of, actual measures. Fundamental research with respect to the mechanisms underlying single measures is highly relevant. This kind of research should provide the basis for an improved ecacy and reliability of cultural

weed control, to increase its acceptance and contribution to the management of weed populations. Broadening the spectrum of suitable measures will increase the window of opportunities and consequently it will be more likely that a strategy can be developed that ts the needs and skills of individual farmers. A logical next question is where to focus the eort for identifying additional cultural control measures. Curative control, be it chemically or mechanically based, mainly targets weed seedlings and thus typically focuses on one specic life cycle stage of the weeds. Ecological weed management, rather than acute problem solving, is more oriented towards the long-term management of weed populations, implying that, theoretically, any life-cycle stage can be targeted. Today most of the available management options; for instance, the ones based on manipulation of cropweed competitive relationships, are connected to the plant phase. This is not surprising, as processes like establishment, growth, competition, owering and seed production are frequently studied and relatively well understood. For the seed phase, a completely dierent picture arises. Research in this area is often hindered by the simple fact that seeds in the soil are not visible, making continuous monitoring of individuals impossible. For this reason, it is foreseen that many of the options in the seed phase have not yet been exploited and consequently, investment in fundamental research regarding processes like decay, predation, germination and dormancy of seeds should provide useful clues for developing additional weed management options. A second research area is modelling. Cropweed competition models are well suited for providing the quantitative insight in the positive and negative consequences of individual cultural control measures that is needed as a basis for optimisation of complex weed management strategies (Bastiaans et al., 2000). Clear cut examples are the role of cropweed competition modelling in case of the ideotyping of weed-competitive rice cultivars (Bastiaans et al., 1997) and the design of weedsuppressive intercropping systems (Baumann et al., 2002b). There is also an obvious role for demographic models (Holst et al., 2007). With a shift from herbicidal control to cultural control, the time-horizon at which the weed problem is envisaged is extended. Rather than just avoiding yield reduction because of the competition from weeds in the current crop, attention moves towards the management of weed populations in a rotational context. Consequently, the carry-over eects of specic measures towards future growing seasons might be as important as their primary eect in the current season. Population modelling can account for these eects and provide a more solid basis for valuing the true strength of a specic measure. Population dynamical modelling

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also gives clues on which of the life-cycle stages are most sensitive and therefore the most attractive target for weed management operations. Additionally, the models can be used to evaluate entire weed management strategies and determine whether the combination of measures is able to cause a declining population trend. It is for these reasons that modelling is identied as a second research area that deserves more attention in light of the advancement of weed management strategies that primarily consist of cultural control measures.

Acknowledgement
It is with regret that we report that Roberto Paolini (1955 2007), friend, colleague and co-author, died in 2007.

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