Sep 26, 2011
![IMG 0045 copy IMG 0045 copy](http://ucanr.org/blogs/UCDWeedScience/blogfiles/8728.jpg)
If you need proof, I'm attaching a photo of a plot that was tall fescue turf for the past 5 years and there were few weeds in the plots. I then shut off off the water for a few months and the fescue died. I recently started irrigating a few plots and up came a bumper crop of common purslane and spotted spurge.
Such a heavy infestation would not have come from nearby sites so all I can think of is that the seed bank stored seeds from many years ago. The turf was competitive enough to suppress most weeds so any seeds were not successful in establishing.
So here are two ecological principles being demonstrated: the role of the seed bank in maintaining weed populations and the role of interspecific competition in suppressing weed growth and establishment.
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