Noxious

Noxious: adjective, to be harmful, poisonous, or very unpleasant. Noxious weeds are something that we always look for when monitoring land. The reason for this is because noxious weeds can cause permanent or very harmful damage to a plant community. Typically many noxious weeds are also invasive which makes them so harmful to communities. Today I pulled Oxeye Daisy for an hour. It’s spread was massive and I noticed that it was very competitive, and in some areas the most dominant plant. Many noxious weeds are “biennial”, this doesn't mean that all weeds are biennial, parsley for example is biennial. Biennial means that it takes two years for the plant to complete its life cycle. The first year the plant is just root, stem, and leaves. The second year the plant flowers and seeds before it finally dies. It’s very important to pull these plants even though they have a short life cycle they can do serious spreading during the second year of its life. Oxeye Daisy’s are not biennials but Yellow Toadflax and Houndstongue are and they are prevalent in the Gunnison Basin. Oxeye Daisys are hard to eliminate because they can regenerate from rhizome fragments (pieces of root) and also spread by seed. So learn and pull your noxious weeds or they become obnoxious.