Abstract
Lactuca serriola L. (wild lettuce) is a highly invasive C3 weed in many countries, including Australia, Canada, and the USA. This weed is a severe threat to agricultural systems, especially in crops grown with reduced or no-tillage approaches, which commonly include wheat, cereals and pulses. Owing to the vertical orientation of its leaves in the north-south plane and its root architecture, L. serriola can maintain high water use efficiency under drought conditions, giving it the ability to expand its range under a drying climate. Each plant can produce up to 100,000 seeds which have no primary dormancy and form a short-term seedbank lasting up to three years. Most seedlings emerge in autumn and overwinter as a rosette, with a small flush of emergence in spring depicting staggered germination. Research into control methods for this weed has been performed, and these methods include chemical herbicides applied alone and in combination, the establishment of plant competition, tillage, mowing and bioherbicide. Herbicides can provide effective control when applied in the seedling or rosette stage; however, spring germination is difficult to control, as it skips the rosette stage. Some biotypes are now resistant to ALS inhibitor and synthetic auxins, causing concern regarding using herbicides. A dedicated integrated management plan for 3–4 years is recommended for the control of this troublesome species. This review will explore the biology, ecology, distribution, current control techniques and previous research on this weed, allowing us to make recommendations for its future research and management.
Highlights
The genus Lactuca originated in the Mediterranean Basin, with Lactuca serriola L. being the most common and widely distributed species of this genus [1,2]
It has been widely suggested that to reduce the dependence on the use of herbicides, integrated weed management, which is a holistic weed control approach developed by integrating different weed control methods, should be introduced worldwide for the effective control of L. serriola
The ability of L. serriola to establish itself in a wide range of environmental conditions in numerous countries is key to its effective establishment and propagation [61,62]
Summary
The genus Lactuca originated in the Mediterranean Basin, with Lactuca serriola L. being the most common and widely distributed species of this genus [1,2]. L. serriola is commonly known as prickly lettuce, wild lettuce or compass plant, and belongs to the family Asteraceae It featured in an assessment of the top 20 national residual weeds in Australian agriculture, affecting the yield and revenue return of canola, pulses and winter cereals crops [3]. Lactuca serriola is a Western Eurasian meridional-temperate species, having a synanthropic worldwide distribution whose exact boundary of original distribution area has not been determined [13] This species has been widely introduced into other regions and it occurs throughout many continental locations in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, a greater part of North America and Central and South America. This study observed that L. serriola was more commonly found in disturbed habitats, such as the edges of roads and pavements, parking lots and near gas stations, road ditches, and ruderal locations with fertile soil, which is consistent with its position as a weed in North America [20]. This shows that human activities, in transportation corridors, have spread L. serriola widely [5,13,21]
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