Why do weeds grow almost anywhere so easily, but growing food crop requires so much care and is so difficult?

Question

Why do weeds grow almost anywhere so easily, but growing food crop requires so much care and is so difficult?

In: 47

Answer 1

Natural selection and adaptation.

Ruderal plants – “wild” weeds that grow first in a given location- have adapted to grow quickly and spread seed with few inputs other than the weather and sunlight.

Crops selected by manual cross breeding to produce specific plants (food crops) have to be seeded or cloned to reproduce and thus require significant inputs to grow and mature/fruit.

The trade off is desirable characteristics of plants- flavor, yield, heartiness, pest resistance, time to maturity etc. compared to “wild” crops.

Producing food crops require regular care, but is not difficult especially when done on a large scale.