Thistle is a highly destructive weed, and its degree of destruction is extremely serious. How serious is it? Let's take a look together with the editor!
Thistle's Destruction to the Ecological Environment
It can become a dominant species in bare land within a year of invasion.
Due to its strong vitality, it can cover and suppress native plants, causing damage to the original ecosystem, reducing agricultural yields, depleting water and nutrients in the soil, and causing significant agricultural losses.
The spread of thistle can consume large areas of land, causing abandonment of crops and posing a major threat to the ecological environment.
The potential harm of thistle is particularly serious in extensive agricultural areas.
Thistle can intermix with all dryland crops, especially crops such as corn, soybeans, sunflowers, hemp, and kenaf, causing large-scale weed infestation and even crop failure.
It can quickly form a monospecific dominant community, leading to the decline and extinction of the original plant community.
Experiments have shown that in a square meter of corn field, as long as there are 30 to 50 thistle seedlings, corn yields will decrease by 30 to 40 percent; when the number of thistle seedlings increases to 50 to 100, corn yields will almost be completely lost.
Thistle's Characteristics
Thistle is native to North America, an annual herbaceous plant that grows 20-150 centimeters tall;
The stem is erect, with cone-shaped branches on the upper part, with ridges and sparsely pubescent.
The lower leaves are opposite, with short petioles, palmately lobed, with small lanceolate to oblanceolate lobes, and entire margins.
The upper surface is dark green, with fine short appressed hairs or nearly hairless, and the lower surface is grayish green, with dense short rough hairs.
The head-like inflorescence is globose or ovoid, 4-5 millimeters in diameter, with short stalks, drooping, densely clustered into a compound inflorescence at the branch tips.
The involucre is wide and hemispherical or disc-shaped; the corolla is pale yellow, 2 millimeters long, with a short tube and a bell-shaped upper part with wide lobes.
The achene is inverted-ovoid, hairless, and hidden in a hard involucre. It flowers from August to September and fruits from September to October.
Thistle was discovered in Hangzhou, China in 1935 and is distributed in approximately 15 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in Northeast, North, Central, and East China. It is a malignant weed that inhibits and repels plants in the Poaceae and Asteraceae families.
Thistle has extremely strong regenerative ability. Stems, nodes, branches, and roots can all grow adventitious roots, and new plants can be formed from cuttings and pressing. The remaining above-ground residue after removal or cutting can still quickly regenerate new shoots.
The growth period is uneven and overlapping. The emergence period can start from the late March and continue until late November, lasting for 7 months; early and late-maturing thistle have a difference of more than one month in their growth period.
These are the direct reasons for the uneven and overlapping growth periods.
