Every gardener and gardener annually carries out an intensified fight against weeds. These annoying plants are rapidly spreading throughout the entire area. Once you relax a little, they immediately cover the entire garden with a thick “carpet”. They take away the strength of the soil and also shade cultivated plants. One of these weeds is pigweed. It is familiar to almost all gardeners. It’s worth figuring out what kind of grass it is and how to get rid of the unwanted “guest”.
Features of pigs
Most often, pigweed is found in the Crimea, the Caucasus, the Southern Volga region, as well as in some Central Asian countries. Loves dry, hot climates. The plant begins to bloom in June and ends in late autumn. It can reproduce both by seeds and by the root system. Once shed, pigweed seeds rarely germinate. The plant reproduces primarily through its rhizome.
The roots of pigweed are thick and have large scales. They are located horizontally or with a slope to the ground surface. The roots have the ability to form upward shoots, which then grow outward and form green leaves. Such shoots can quickly spread across the ground, taking root and forming new young stems. Then the end of the shoot is buried again in the ground. Because of this ability, the plant was called pigweed.This process can continue for a very long time, producing more and more new shoots.
It is impossible to say exactly what type the pigweed root system belongs to. It can change from sympodial to monopodial. Also, the roots of the plant are both aboveground and underground at the same time. This feature helps the weed grow very quickly, taking over increasingly larger areas. Pigweed is unpretentious to the composition of the soil, and can grow in absolutely any soil. The photo clearly shows how much pigweed can grow.
In uncultivated soil, the plant spreads thanks to its creeping vines. Pigweed is capable of displacing other vegetation from the site. In loose, well-cultivated soil, pigweed reproduces mainly by underground rhizomes. The fight against this plant is made difficult by the rapid growth of the rhizome, which destroys other crops. Also, powerful roots make the soil cultivation process very difficult.
The stems of pigwort branch immediately at the base of the plant. They can grow up to 30 cm in height. There are also plants up to 50 cm high. The leaves are lanceolate, pointed. They are quite hard and rough, and there may be sparse hairs. The leaf color is green with a dark gray or bluish tint. Spike-shaped branches of pigwort form an inflorescence collected in the upper part of the plant. The length of each branch is about 6–7 cm. There can be from 3 to 8 such branches in one inflorescence.
Each spikelet of pigweed has an oblong shape. They are located on one side of the inflorescence branches in 2 rows. Spikelets are single-flowered or double-flowered with membranous scales.The fruit is contained in flower scales, along with which they fall off when ripe. The caryopsis caryopsis has an oblong-ovoid shape. The flat, triangular fruit is about 3 mm long and at least 1 mm wide. Ripe flower scales are straw-yellow in color, but can also be green with a purple tint.
Pig control measures
Many gardeners are scratching their heads, wondering how to get rid of pigweed. The following tips will help make the fight against the plant effective and fairly quick. When sowing or planting various crops, the degree of infestation of the area with pigweed should be taken into account. Areas where there are very few plants can be safely sown with cotton. In some areas, such places are reserved for planting industrial and row crops. But the fields and vegetable gardens, where the hogweed has become widespread, are suitable for growing grain crops.
To destroy the weed, deep autumn plowing of the soil should be carried out. In this case, tillage must be done early, immediately after the harvest has been harvested. The soil is plowed to the depth of root germination (about 22 cm), placing the layers on edge so that the soil can dry out well. Then all the roots of the plants are combed out. You can also peel stubble using special plows.
A month after peeling, it is necessary to carry out deep plowing of the soil and combing out the roots of the plants. The next year the soil must be kept under black fallow. This means that the field should not be planted with anything throughout the entire season. The following procedures for combating pigs are carried out in the following sequence:
- in the spring, the rhizomes of plants are combed out using a spring cultivator;
- at the beginning of May, the soil is plowed again to the depth of germination of the root system, after which the remaining roots are immediately combed out;
- throughout the summer, about 4 plowings of the soil should be done to a depth of about 10 cm, combing out the roots of the plants.
In the spring of next year it will be necessary to plow the ground again and comb out the last remnants of pigweed rhizomes. After all these procedures, you can begin sowing cultivated plants. You may have to harrow the soil several times, but it's worth it.
Plowing the soil with a shovel or disc implements can lead to an even greater spread of pigweed, so these implements are not used in clogged areas. In Central Asia, where pigweed grows in large quantities, it is often necessary to re-plow the soil in spring for better results.
Conclusion
Now you know for sure that you need to start getting rid of pigweed immediately, before the weed becomes the main plant in the garden. The article describes in detail an effective method of how to destroy pigweed.
