Lior Blank
Gal Rozenberg
Roni Gafni 

Understanding how weeds spread in fields has been a central theme in the agricultural literature for the past three decades, including topics such as weed management and weed community assembly. This understanding is pivotal for optimizing herbicide use. Here, we present the results of a literature review focusing on the spatial and temporal distribution of weeds within fields over the last three decades. Eighty-one articles that met the inclusion criteria were included in the final analysis. These papers studied the distribution of 141 species. We found that 86% of the species studied had patchy distribution. Nevertheless, almost half of the studies focused on only one field, and 63% covered one to two years, which is insufficient to study the dynamics of weed distribution over time. In addition, 97% of the studies were on crop fields, while orchards and vineyards were only rarely studied. This review emphasizes the need for more long-term studies to better understand the temporal dynamics of weed patches during and between growing seasons, and examine the factors that might affect them.