Dynamics of arvenses plants in agroecosystems

Dear readers, within ecosystems there are plants that adapt perfectly to edaphoclimatic conditions (soil and climate) and some do not provide any productive utility that economically benefits producers. These plants have certain competitive abilities with the agricultural crops that are established, which causes the depletion of the resources that are necessary for the growth of crops, among the competitive abilities can be found the amount of reserves accumulated in organs of vegetative propagation that helps the rapid growth of foliage, which allows a rapid use of the resources of the environment for its expansion over the entire surface of the soil.

In this same order of ideas, it can be said that in agricultural ecosystems when the weeds manage to establish themselves they begin with a very aggressive dynamic of competition capturing the necessary resources for the development of crops as mentioned in the previous section, when it fulfills its phenological stage and reaches its reproductive stage some produce a large amount of seeds, which ensures their offspring and increases their coverage within the surface through dissemination means such as wind, insects and on forage surfaces animals can be a means of dissemination since they could consume these seeds and when they defecate in other paddocks or surfaces these remain on the ground waiting for the ideal conditions to germinate.

In order for the weeds to produce the seeds, the pollination process must occur, which can be by autogamy (self-pollination) or allogamy, which is a kind of cross-pollination that can be benefited by the wind or by pollinating agents such as bumblebees, this allows there to be an exchange of genetic material, so to speak, between different species of plants, which allows them to adapt to all types of habitats including the most unfavorable or disturbed.

In that sense, in disturbed or heterogeneous environments the weeds have the ability to adapt their morphology and physiology to face the environmental diversity present in the natural conditions within the agricultural ecosystems. The agronomist engineer Leguizamón mentions that an outstanding example of plasticity includes the time that elapses between various stages of the growth cycle (emergence - flowering or maturation), the type of seeds they produce (latency level) and the relative size and distribution of roots and leaves.

An important aspect that allows to ensure the offspring of weeds is the dormancy or dormancy of the seeds, since seeds can last long periods in the soil without germinating, some authors point out that seed dormancy is a state in which viable seeds do not germinate due to environmental factors or the hardness of the integument that covers them, so the dormancy process is considered as the primary factor contributing to the continued presence of weed seeds in agricultural soils.

Another factor that influences the germination of weed seeds is the depth in which it is located, because when they are at depths greater than approximately 2 cm the oxygen levels decrease as does the absence of light, then logically the seeds that are in the first centimeters of the soil and have the ideal environmental conditions have the possibility of germinating because near the surface ensures the availability of resources and reduces the likelihood of competition with the later germination and establishment species.

Finally, according to the aforementioned, one of the practices used for the control of weeds is to use tillage methods that allow bringing the seeds from the deepest strata of the soil to the surface when they have the necessary moisture through precipitation or irrigation germinate, to later use herbicides that allows their control or mechanical methods with the use of rotary, this will possibly reduce the incidence of weeds. The ideal is to accept that these plants are part of ecosystems and work tirelessly to keep them controlled since, because they are part of the vegetation, it is naturally very difficult to eradicate them, let's identify it and study the possible benefits that they can bring to agricultural systems.