What makes a dandelion a weed

Flame weeding is another option. Keep in mind the heat from the flame, does not kill the root. Dandelions in my landscape beds are kept at bay through regular flame weeding. Dandelions can be a pyro's delight. Mow cool season lawns higher at 3 inches, to make your turf more competitive over weeds. Also, your lawn will thank you if you haven't already raised your mowing height. Herbicides are the last resort. Most homeowners seek control in the spring.

However, better control is achieved during late summer to early fall applications. My two boys were very anxious to show me what they discovered, a flower, which bees love. They each brought in dandelion bouquets for my wife with their own tucked behind their ear, just as their father had when I was a child. Several minutes later my youngest, burst into the room with tears in his eyes.

He stammered, "The man is killing the flowers"! I looked out the window and saw the neighbor using a dandelion popper and pulling out each dandelion in his yard.

The neighbor caught my eye, and we smiled and waved. All the seeds produced by a plant will be genetically almost the same and form a clone dispersed as seed. Each clone or closely related set of clones shows slight variation from others and these clones are recognised by Botanists as microspecies are recognisd in the Dandelion!

In the short term agamospermyalmost certainly contributes to the success of Dandelion as a weed, ensuring that seeds are produced whether pollination takes place or not. They can take root in places that seem little short of miraculous, and then are impossible to get rid of, as homeowners have found.

But why is this plant so hard to kill? The sunny yellow flowers go from bud to seed in days. Their lifespan is long, too — an individual plant can live for years, so the dandelion lurking in a corner of the playground might be older than the children running past it. The roots sink in deeper over the years, and can go down 15 feet. Like the Hydra who sprouted two new heads for every one that was cut off, the roots clone when divided; a one-inch bit of dandelion root can grow a whole new dandelion.

Dandelion leaves can shove their way though gravel and cement, and thrive in barren habitats. Dandelions are among the most expensive items in the grocery store.

Dandelions out-price prime rib, swordfish and lobster. They also appear in produce and other sections, and even at the liquor store. You can enjoy a complete meal, from salad greens to dandelion quiche, followed by dandelion ice cream, washed down with dandelion wine.

If you over-indulge, a cup of dandelion tea is the perfect remedy, since dandelions help the liver flush hangover-inducing toxins from the body. Herbicides used on lawns to kill dandelions take a terrible toll on wildlife. More than seven million wild birds are estimated to die annually due to the use of lawn pesticides.

Lawns make up thirty million acres of the United States, and Americans use an estimated 80 million pounds of pesticides on them annually. You know, the lazy guy on one side who won't bother with his yard and the nature-nut on the other side who thinks Dandelions are "cool". Why can't everybody be like you. If you're bent on getting rid of Dandelions in your lawn, here's a few tips:.

If you really hate "the environment" then go ahead and use chemicals to control Dandelions, just do it properly! Weed killers containing 2,4-D work well on Dandelions. But the best time to use them is in the fall when the plants are transferring resources into their roots in preparation for winter. A fall herbicide application may not seem to be doing much visually at first, but come spring the effects will be far superior to a spring or summer application. If you're going to use 2,4-D read this article first: 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid.

Why not biological control? Isn't there some little bug or disease in Eurasia that we could transplant to North America to go to work on our dandelions? Unfortunately, no one has yet to come up with any magic bullet for Dandelions. One of the main factors limiting work on biological controls is the fear of releasing yet another alien invasive into the North American ecosystem.

People are so worried about releasing something that might have unforeseen consequences that they place huge road-blocks to doing so, to the extent that biological controls researchers are largely ham-strung. A fungus, Sclerotinia minor , has shown some efficacy in controlling Dandelions, both by itself and with lower, sub-lethal doses of 2,4-D, but it's still a long way from becoming a truly effective bio-heribicide.

Bad News for Dandelions. Some researchers have suggested that Dandelions are poor competitors for potassium. Limiting potassium in fertilizer regimes may help weaken Dandelions. What is the cost to our society due to Dandelions?

Unfortunately, I couldn't find an up-to-date accounting. Some older sources quote figures for the costs related to residential weed control; that includes more than just Dandelions, but that species is the single most important residential weed. Do Dandelions have much impact on agricultural weed control? Well, they're not among the worst agricultural pests, but they can be a problem.

And how much do farmers spend on herbicides?