What is the Weed Seed Bank, and Why is it Important to Organic Farmers?
The weed seed bank is the reserve of viable weed seeds present on the soil surface and scattered throughout the soil profile. It consists of both new weed seeds recently shed, and older seeds that have persisted in the soil from previous years. In practice, the soil’s weed seed bank also includes the tubers, bulbs, rhizomes, and other vegetative structures through which some of our most serious perennial weeds propagate themselves. In the following discussion, the term weed seed bank is defined as the sum of viable weed seeds and vegetative propagules that are present in the soil and thus contribute to weed pressure in future crops. Agricultural soils can contain thousands of weed seeds and a dozen or more vegetative weed propagules per square foot. 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–
