Can a reduced rate of herbicide benefit native plants and control ground cover weeds?
The use of herbicide to control weeds in natural areas can cause non-target damage to resident native plant communities and compromise native restoration goals. We tested 'full' and 'reduced' (half) rates of herbicide (rates based on previous glasshouse trials) on the ground cover weed species tradescantia (Tradescantia fluminensis), plectranthus (Plectranthus ciliatus), and climbing asparagus (Asparagus scandens) to determine whether the reduced rate would cause less non-target damage to natives and achieve sufficient control of the weeds.