Identify of the weed in this picture. - Ask Extension
While conducting an AAMG visit to the Long Reach community garden, I was asked to Identify the weed in the picture. I'm told it has a significant root...
Knowledgebase
Identify of the weed in this picture. #871376
Asked June 03, 2024, 4:35 PM EDT
While conducting an AAMG visit to the Long Reach community garden, I was asked to Identify the weed in the picture. I'm told it has a significant root system and appears to be a perennial. What can be used to eradicate it in the garden.
Howard County Maryland
Expert Response
We are consulting with a couple Extension weed specialists and are waiting for their feedback. We can't quite see enough detail in the structure of the plant (like how the leaves attach to the stem, which is sometimes diagnostic) in order to determine a species- or genus-level ID. Are any of the plants in bloom? (Flowers can be key to plant ID.)
Regardless of the weed's identity, there are still the same options for removal: physical/manual and chemical. If the plant not growing near desirable plants, it could be dug out or smothered with a light-blocking tarp for several weeks to starve the roots. Repeated cutting-down of all above-ground growth will also gradually starve the weed by making it exhaust root energy stores each time it resprouts, though removal of that new growth needs to be prompt to make such efforts effective and efficient.
Otherwise, it could be carefully spot-treated with herbicide. Contact herbicides pose less risk to nearby desirable plants (unless they volatilize and the evaporated chemical drifts onto them in hot or breezy weather), but they will not kill roots, so perennial weeds will need follow-up treatments akin to the cut-down method above, as that will eventually exhaust the roots. A systemic herbicide can be used instead, treating only the weed's foliage, and die-off of the treated plants might take a week or so (or follow-up treatments) depending on how resilient the species is and how extensive the root system actually is.
We'll reply again once we have some feedback about what species of weed this appears to be.
Miri
Regardless of the weed's identity, there are still the same options for removal: physical/manual and chemical. If the plant not growing near desirable plants, it could be dug out or smothered with a light-blocking tarp for several weeks to starve the roots. Repeated cutting-down of all above-ground growth will also gradually starve the weed by making it exhaust root energy stores each time it resprouts, though removal of that new growth needs to be prompt to make such efforts effective and efficient.
Otherwise, it could be carefully spot-treated with herbicide. Contact herbicides pose less risk to nearby desirable plants (unless they volatilize and the evaporated chemical drifts onto them in hot or breezy weather), but they will not kill roots, so perennial weeds will need follow-up treatments akin to the cut-down method above, as that will eventually exhaust the roots. A systemic herbicide can be used instead, treating only the weed's foliage, and die-off of the treated plants might take a week or so (or follow-up treatments) depending on how resilient the species is and how extensive the root system actually is.
We'll reply again once we have some feedback about what species of weed this appears to be.
Miri
Update: our consultants confirmed our suspicion that this is Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis). If opting to use a herbicide, products labeled for the control of this weed should work, but might take repeated applications to be fully effective.
Miri
Miri
