Drivers of Weed Control Implementation and Challenges: Perspectives From Weed Management Professionals

Invasive, nonnative plant species are a major driver of global change due to their ability to disrupt ecological structure and function. However, despite substantial promising research into effective weed management strategies, large-scale invasive plant (hereafter “weeds”) reduction is rarely achieved. While the reasons for this disconnect are multifaceted, one documented cause is the limited overlap between researchers studying weed management and the practitioners enacting it. Here, we help close this research-implementation gap by surveying those involved with weed management across Utah and Arizona, two states in the American West that face considerable weed infestations on working landscapes. We asked weed management professionals across working landscapes to indicate how often they use different weed control techniques recommended by integrated weed management practices (specifically, prescribed fire, herbicide, grazing, and seeding), how effective they find the techniques to be, and concerns related to each treatment. Because the literature implies that many of these techniques are effective alone or in concert, we expected logistical concerns (i.e., cost, access to equipment, lack of information) would be the dominant reasons for not pursuing a weed control strategy. We found that weed management professionals are relying heavily on herbicide and are using other weed control techniques at a much smaller frequency. Weed management professionals list multiple concerns with different weed control treatments, but most concerns were not logistical in nature. Instead, concerns centered around ecological and weather constraints such as inadequate weed control when grazing, lack of seed establishment, and losing control of fire. We recommend ways in which researchers can work with practitioners to address weed treatment concerns to increase the diversity of weed control treatments used in working landscapes.