The nature of the competition between cereal crops and annual weeds

Abstract

In continuation of earlier work, a study has been made of the factors controlling the competition between spring-sown cereals and annual weeds. During the years 1934 and 1935 some eighteen replicated trials were carried out in widely different localities. In six experiments, observations involving some 20,000 counts were made on the cereal development. Competition between Brassica arvensis (yellow charlock) and spring barley primarily reduced the number of tillers and fertile shoots; competition on the other hand with Raphanus raphanistrum (white charlock) diminished in addition ear size. The presence of R. raphanistrum in spring oats may decrease panicle size to the same extent as shoot number. In four out of six experiments the addition of nitrogen to both the weedy and clean crop had similar effects, greatly increasing tiller production in barley and both panicle size and shoot number in oats.In six experiments nitrogenous manuring raised the yield of the weedy crop (containing either B. arvensis, R. raphanistrum or Chrysanthemum segetum (corn marigold)) to or above the level of the clean crop; n i four the yield increases were greater in the weedy than in the weed-free crop. In one experiment doubling the amount of nitrogen applied to the weedy crop did not increase the yield of oats more than the single rate, although the final yield level was considerably below that of the weed-free oats. In four other experiments additional nitrogen did not raise the yield of the weedy crop; but in only one was the yield of the clean crop increased by nitrogenous manuring.