Fig. 1.

Graphical representation of the field setups used in this study for a crop plant density of 200 plants m⁻². The plant patterns are uniform (left column), random (middle column), and rows (right column). Weed infestation levels range from weed-free (top row), 100 weed plants m⁻² (middle row) to 200 weed plants m⁻² (bottom row). Each dot indicates the position of a plant. Crop plant positions are represented by the black dots, and weed plant positions are represented by the grey dots. Plant positions outside of the dashed area were treated as border plants. Model output was based only on the focal plants within the dashed area. The black solid borders represent the size of the simulated fields. For the crop density of 400 plants m⁻², the crop plants were more closely spaced and therefore fields were proportionally smaller. The positions of the weed plants as well as the positions of the crop plants in the random plant pattern were chosen randomly each simulation run