Agriculture Report - What Makes a Plant a Weed?

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But	English	From	I	Penn	and	can	considered	control	good
have	in	longer	most	mulch	natural	organisms	over	planting
plants	produce	says	seeds	some	that	the	they	using	way	will

VOA Learning English, welcome to Agriculture, in Special English. have a question for you: When is a plant a weed? Well, the experts at Penn State University a simple answer: When the bad qualities outweigh the qualities. Consider the fact that crops produce several hundred from each plant. By comparison, each weed plant can tens or even hundreds of thousands of seeds. And buried seeds can survive up to 40 years or . Eradicating, or getting rid of, weeds means that you to remove all the seeds and roots so the will not grow back. But birds, wind and weather bring them back to the land. A more common to deal with weeds is to control them so the land can be used for planting. Experts advise two or more control methods. Chemical weed killers or treatments like corn gluten can suppress weed growth. Dense of a crop can also act as a natural . Bill Curran is a professor of weed science at State University in Pennsylvania. He says one of the common methods for suppressing weeds is dense planting. He a dense, competitive crop that quickly shades the soil help. The weeds need light to grow, so blocking sun will reduce their growth. Other controls include turning the soil, pulling the weeds or covering them with made of shredded wood, garden waste or other material. even mulch has its limits. Weeds can be transported mulch. This is also true of soil, grain, hay animals. Animals like sheep or goats eat weeds, so can provide a biological control. Even insects and other can also act as biological controls. For VOA Learning , I'm Carolyn Presutti.

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