Weeds: Role and Management in Agroecosystems
A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Ecology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2021) | Viewed by 3582
Special Issue Editors
Interests: bioherbicides; weed biocontrol; bioactive metabolites; sustainable weed management; cover crops; soil management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Spontaneous flora, meant as desired plants or noxious weeds, affect both the stability and productivity of the agroecosystems. Stability can be guaranteed, for example by a high level of phytodiversity, or by the favourable composition of the weed community, having poor competitiveness or the capability to improve the physic-chemical characteristics of the soil. The productivity of agroecosystems can be affected by the infestation level and species composition. All these complex effects must be considered in order to design socially, economically and environmentally sustainable weed management systems.
We invite colleagues to send their scientific articles, to contribute improving knowledge to this transversal topic of Weed Science, and proposing new approaches for sustainable weed management. Contribution can regard, among others, the following subjects:
- What makes a plant a weed?
- Relationships between weed community composition and crop yield
- Influence of weed management strategies on weed community composition and soil seed bank
- Species traits: a functional analysis of weed communities.
- Ecological role of weeds in the agroecosystems
- Invasive weeds: cause or consequence of agrosystem alterations
- Changes in weed community in a changing climate
- Biological weed control as exploitation of the interactions between plants and other organisms in the agroecosystem
- Weeds as a resource for agriculture and human needs
Dr. Mariano Fracchiolla
Mr. Maurizio Vurro
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- weed community
- biodiversity
- invasive weeds
- sustainable weed management
- crop-weed relationships
- biological control
- soil seed bank
- agroecosystem
