2021/02/24 by Stéphane Cordeau, Cordeau, Stéphane, Nicolas Munier‐Jolain +3
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Agricultural risk and resilience #Biological Control of Invasive Species #Biomasse adventice #Ble tendre d’hiver yield #Blé tendre d'hiver Yield #Competition cultureadventice #Compétition cultureadventice #Diversite fonctionelle #Diversité fonctionelle #Functional diversity #Rendement #Weed Control and Herbicide Applications #Weed biomass #Weedcrop competition #Winter wheat
paper · doi:10.15454/en10-2v70
openalex publication_date 2021/02/24 · openalex created_date 2022/07/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
Reconciling crop productivity and biodiversity maintenance is one of the main challenges of agriculture worldwide. We tested the hypothesis that (i) not all weed communities generate yield losses and (ii) that more diversified weed communities can mitigate yield losses. The study is based on three years of observations of weed densities, weed and crop biomass at four critical growth stages of winter cereals across 54 zones (36 unweeded and 18 weeded), in fields with a large range of weed density and diversity. Yield losses were not significant in weeded zones. In unweeded zones, four out of the six communities identified generated significant yield losses, which ranged from 19 to 56%. In unweeded zones, the number of ears per plant and the number of grains per ear were systematically affected, when yield losses were detected. When weed community evenness increased, total weed biomass decreased and crop productivity increased.