An invader from the past

In the mid sevenites, and I mean the date and not the temperature, my father - a farmer - found a plant in the edge of his crop of wheat. The green leaves stood out amongst the yellowing heads and the serrated edges gave the leaves a more dubious nature. He was concerned enough to send a sample to both the Police and to Wye Agricultural College, he feared that an illicit plant had been sown near the edge of the crop. A potential crop of cannabis, perhaps. A similar plant had reared its vegetative head in gardens and industrial yards over England - Barking, Surrey, Sussex. What did it look like? It had the ability to grow a foot in length or height in a week, some say eighteen inches in four days; it had a white or violet trumpet shaped flower that would bloom at night; it produced a hard spiked date shaped fruit and that it had a chocolate-coloured stem.

The results came back from various sources, including a Mr. Rose from the Ministry of Agriculture that the plant was Datura stronomium, a thorn apple, also known as jimson weed or stink flower, the latter due to its unpleasant odour. According to the Royal Horticultural Society, it is "is an annual weed of gardens, roadsides and other waste or cultivated land. It is widely naturalised in warmer countries throughout the world, and is quite common in the British Isles, often appearing in waste and cultivated ground." But as it is linked to one of the family that includes deadly nightshade, potato and tobacco, it does have poisonous seeds. The linked website above does give pictures of both the plant and the hard spiked fruit.

Have any of the Eurolink members seen potential invaders in their crops, how have they dealt with them, what have you learnt from other farmers in dealing with these invaders? I would be interested in your thoughts as I am sure others would as well.