Effects of the inhibition of weed communities by winter-flooding

Abstract

Winter-flooded paddy field is an agricultural method which putting a water among the winter, it is paid attention as an environmental friendly agriculture. Especially, it is said, winter-flooding is control paddy weeds and there is the farming potential that the annual rice yield is high. However, there is no detailed research about the effects of weed communities by winter-flooding, as the purpose of this study, we investigated the effects of the inhibition of weed communities (life cycle, harmful weed) by winter-flooding at a shore of Inba Lake, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, and compared them to paddy weeds in a dry paddy field. Methods examined the plant height (cm) and the cover degree class of all appearance species in each quadrant frame (1 m²). Quadrant in the two type paddies were 10 frames (D1-D10) at the control, and were 10 frames (W1-W10) at the treatment (Figure 1). In a winter-flooded paddy field, species number and plant volume of winter-annual plants decreased in the third winter after winter-flooding, In particular, the plant volume of Alopecurus aequalis, Cardamine flexuosa decreased significantly. We considered that the cause of this decrease was due to the depth of flooding (more than 10 cm). Eleocharis kuroguwai and Echinochloa oryzoides, which are perennial plants, Sagittaria trifolia, which is an annual plant, increased in a winter-flooded paddy field in the third summer after winter-flooding. We considered that these species grew thicker at places where the seeds germinated, and grew easily, because the conservation situation of the seeds fitted well under the winter-flooding conditions. They started to grow immediately after the drainage of water. The period of drainage coincided with increasing light intensity and temperature. In addition, the annual rice yield of the third year after winter-flooding was higher than that of the habitual practice rice field．