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Questions and Answers: 2019

Question: This question relates to tickseed weeds here in Winston-Salem North Carolina. Two years ago I collected approximately a quart of …

• Question

  This question relates to tickseed weeds here in Winston-Salem North Carolina. Two years ago I collected approximately a quart of tickseed weed seeds in the fall and scattered them along the sides of our local Greenway where no tickseed weeds were growing that year. Only a few appeared to come up last year. I did not scatter any seeds last year. This year, much to my surprise, hundreds of tickseed plants appeared where I planted 2 years ago. Is there a botanical answer to this phenomenon?

  Answer

  Dear davidmcombs, good morning. Yes, this makes perfect sense. Many fruits have germination inhibitors so that they do not fruit all the next year. This makes sure that some remain if conditions change. In some cases, these germination inhibitors are firm fruit walls resistant to mechanical breakdown. Other times,t here are chemical inhibitors. The fact they took two years to really take off isn't surprising. Best wishes.