If these practices are incorporated into the farm, it becomes more sustainable. By eliminating future weeds, fewer herbicides and less mechanical cultivation are needed. Unfortunately, the practical preventative practices that are now available provide unreliable results and are only effective in a field with a low weed count. Nicholas Jordan first writes on the importance of preventative weed management, and he then comments on current practices being used and what is wrong with them. He finishes the article with the plea for increasing research on preventative weed management and gives an agenda for this change.
Some possible changes are to implement crop rotation and threshold weed management.
Threshold weed management is a system where herbicides are sprayed only after the weed count in a field reaches a sufficient level. In order for preventative weed management practices to become widely used, farmer understanding must increase in two ways. They must understand the costs and risks of preventative weed management and also how and why preventative practices work. Promising avenues for research include managing to increase seed mortality and limit weed seed dispersal. Preventive weed control can also be maximized by scheduling the planting of a single crop over several weeks.