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An appropriate economic framework for valuing the benefits of weed management technologies is to treatweeds as a renewable resource stock problem. Consequently, the weed seed bank is defined as a renewableresource that changes through time due to management and seasonal conditions. The goal of decision-makers isto manage this (negative) resource so as to maximise returns over some pre-specified period of time. Amodelling framework is presented for evaluating the biological and economic effects of weed management. Theframework includes population dynamics, water balance, crop growth, pasture growth and crop/pasture rotationmodels for measuring the physical interactions between weeds and the environment. These models link in withnumerical optimal control, dynamic programming and stochastic dynamic programming models fordetermination of optimal decision rules and measuring economic impact over time of policy scenarios.
