title: Ecologically sustainable weed management: How do we get from proof-of-concept to adoption?
abstract: Weed management is a critically important activity on both agricultural and non-agricultural lands, but it is faced with a daunting set of challenges: environmental damage caused by control practices, weed resistance to herbicides, accelerated rates of weed dispersal through global trade, and greater weed impacts due to changes in climate and land use. Broad-scale use of new approaches is needed if weed management is to be successful in the coming era. We examine three approaches likely to prove useful for addressing current and future challenges from weeds: diversifying weed management strategies with multiple complementary tactics, developing crop genotypes for enhanced weed suppression, and tailoring management strategies to better accommodate variability in weed spatial distributions. In all three cases, proof-of-concept has long been demonstrated and considerable scientific innovations have been made, but uptake by farmers and land managers has been extremely limited. Impediments to employing these and other ecologically based approaches include inadequate or inappropriate government policy instruments, a lack of market mechanisms, and a paucity of social infrastructure with which to influence learning, decision-making, and actions by farmers and land managers. We offer examples of how these impediments are being addressed in different parts of the world, but note that there is no clear formula for determining which sets of policies, market mechanisms, and educational activities will be effective in various locations. Implementing new approaches for weed management will require multidisciplinary teams comprised of scientists, engineers, economists, sociologists, educators, farmers, land managers, industry personnel, policy makers, and others willing to focus on weeds within whole farming systems and land management units.
authors.affiliation: Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA.
authors.forename: Matt
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liebman
authors.affiliation: Department of Horticulture, Botany and Landscaping,  University of Lleida, Lleida, 25003, Spain.
authors.forename: Bàrbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Baraibar
authors.affiliation: School of Natural Sciences, Zoology,  Trinity College Dublin,  University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.
authors.forename: Yvonne
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Buckley
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal and Plant Sciences,  University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK.
authors.forename: Dylan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Childs
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences,  University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 1165, Denmark.
authors.forename: Svend
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Christensen
authors.affiliation: School of Biosciences,  University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, VIC 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cousens
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Pathology and Weed Research,  Newe Ya'ar Research Center,  Agricultural Research Organization, Ramat Yishay, 30095, Israel.
authors.forename: Hanan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Eizenberg
authors.affiliation: Agrosystems Research,  Wageningen UR, Wageningen, 6708 PB, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Sanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Heijting
authors.affiliation: Institute of Agro-environmental and Forest Biology,  National Research Council, Legnaro, 35020, Italy.
authors.forename: Donato
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Loddo
authors.affiliation: Graduate Group in Plant Science,  School of Agriculture,  Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Brazil.
authors.forename: Aldo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Merotto
authors.affiliation: School of Plant Biology,  Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative and Institute of Agriculture,  University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, WA 6009, Australia.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Renton
authors.affiliation: Agrosystems Research,  Wageningen UR, Wageningen, 6708 PB, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marleen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Riemens
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D018556:Crops, Agricultural / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D053209:Herbicide Resistance; D006540:Herbicides; D058865:Introduced Species; D057685:Plant Weeds / Q000187:drug effects; D013997:Time Factors; D058728:Weed Control / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D006540:Herbicides
keywords: diversified weed management strategies; herbicide resistance; multidisciplinary research; outreach; site-specific weed management; weed ecology; weed-suppressive crop genotypes