At AgriLife Studio, we continuously explore field-based topics with multiple layers of impact.
This series of articles aims to share our research, reflections, and sometimes our doubts, to show in a concrete way how we move forward—together and in the field.
Here, there are no ready-made answers — just elements to help understand, open questions, and a genuine desire to make progress together.
🔎 First focus: datura stramonium, a little-known plant with public health implications
Still little known to the general public but already feared in the field, datura is undermining several agricultural sectors in France. This toxic, resilient, and hard-to-eradicate plant raises health, economic, and agronomic challenges that remain widely underestimated.
At AgriLife Studio, we like to start from the buckwheat fields, the rows of beans, or the base of corn stalks to explore the major agricultural challenges of tomorrow. And that’s perfect, because that’s exactly where you might come across datura stramonium — also known as “devil’s weed”: a toxic, invasive plant that’s increasingly present in our crops. Yet its impact remains little known, even among professionals. Why is that? And how should we respond to this growing threat?
A plant that raises concern… but remains poorly understood
Datura is, above all, a highly toxic plant. All of its parts — leaves, seeds, flowers — contain powerful alkaloids such as atropine, scopolamine and hyoscyamine. Even in very small amounts (as little as 1/25th of a seed), these substances can cause hallucinations, confusion, and even coma.
But that’s not all: managing this plant from an agronomic perspective is a real headache.
- Datura can produce up to 4,000 seeds, each capable of growing into a new plant.
- These seeds can remain viable for up to 40 years. Mechanical weeding alone is often ineffective, as repeated plowing brings seeds back to the surface.
- Its decline is very slow, making it a particularly invasive plant.
Given these challenges, all types of agriculture are exposed.
Conventional agriculture, which depends on chemical herbicides, is seeing its tools for controlling datura diminish with the successive bans on active substances. In organic farming, the usual weed management methods — mechanical weeding, biocontrol — are proving insufficient or ineffective. “A scourge for organic farming,” says an organic arable farmer from Moselle.
Despite these risks and agronomic challenges, data on this weed remain scarce and fragmented. Research is often triggered only after poisoning incidents. Recently in Brittany, 49 people were poisoned after consuming buckwheat-based products contaminated with datura.
A plant that raises concern… but remains poorly understood
Datura is, above all, a highly toxic plant. All of its parts — leaves, seeds, flowers — contain powerful alkaloids such as atropine, scopolamine and hyoscyamine. Even in very small amounts (as little as 1/25th of a seed), these substances can cause hallucinations, confusion, and even coma.
But that’s not all: managing this plant from an agronomic perspective is a real headache.
- Datura can produce up to 4,000 seeds, each capable of growing into a new plant.
- These seeds can remain viable for up to 40 years. Mechanical weeding alone is often ineffective, as repeated plowing brings seeds back to the surface.
- Its decline is very slow, making it a particularly invasive plant.
Given these challenges, all types of agriculture are exposed.
Conventional agriculture, which depends on chemical herbicides, is seeing its tools for controlling datura diminish with the successive bans on active substances. In organic farming, the usual weed management methods — mechanical weeding, biocontrol — are proving insufficient or ineffective. “A scourge for organic farming,” says an organic arable farmer from Moselle.
Despite these risks and agronomic challenges, data on this weed remain scarce and fragmented. Research is often triggered only after poisoning incidents. Recently in Brittany, 49 people were poisoned after consuming buckwheat-based products contaminated with datura.
A real public health issue?
The question is becoming increasingly serious. Just one seed per kilogram — that’s one seed in 30,000 in the case of buckwheat — is enough to exceed European regulatory limits for tropane alkaloids. And even if sorting were effective enough to reliably remove datura seeds from a batch, the juice from the stems or mere contact is enough to contaminate the entire lot.
Historically confined to the south, datura is now spreading across France. During our field investigations, we were struck by how many farmers—particularly in Normandy and Centre-Val de Loire—had already encountered it in their fields. And with climate change, the reduction in approved chemical solutions, and the standardization of farming practices and calendars, datura pressure and its geographic expansion are only expected to intensify.
Map: Areas reporting a datura issue in maize (number of responses to the 2020 survey) 2020)
Source: La bretagne n’est pas indemne de Datura, Benjamin COLLIN, Elodie QUEMENER (ARVALIS), 15 juin 2023
In the ongoing fight against jimsonweed (datura stramonium), every link in the agri-food chain is affected: producers, cooperatives, processors, and distributors. Contaminations are difficult to trace, raising concerns about the traceability of agricultural products. Product recalls are costly, and consumer trust can quickly be undermined.
An international challenge
And the reason this topic is of such interest to Agrilife Studio is because of its international scope. Datura stramonium is classified as an invasive species by the EPA in the United States and identified as a “problematic weed” in Spain, Germany, and France. Its rapid spread in China has been documented in recent years. In East Africa, reports note its growing presence in pastoral areas, where it contributes to pasture degradation. In Australia, a report by Food Standards Australia New Zealand linked Datura stramonium to the contamination of spinach batches that caused food poisoning, prompting authorities to tighten controls on leafy vegetable crops.
Solutions exist… but many grey areas remain
At AgriLife Studio, we’ve combined scientific data, field insights, and farmer testimonies to assess practical solutions against datura.
Certain systemic practices can help limit its spread:
- Cleaning agricultural machinery, especially those used by custom farming service providers, is crucial since they can be key vectors for the spread of datura. “We’re seeing more and more of it coming from outside services. I ask for my machines to be cleaned on-site so I don’t bring it back to my farm,” explains a field crop farmer in the Eure region.
- Early mechanical weeding, before the plant goes to seed (though caution is needed, as this can also stimulate new germinations…).
- Extending crop rotations by introducing winter crops helps break the cycle of datura, a late-germinating summer annual weed.
We invite you to consult the documentation provided by the Rhône Chamber of Agriculture for more detailed insights into the levers for controlling datura.
But above all, new technological tools are emerging:
- Drone-based remote sensing, combined with machine learning, enables precise identification of datura plants in the field. In France, removal is still done manually. But in other countries, like Spain—where regulations on agricultural drone use are more flexible—targeted spraying is used to eliminate datura. (On this topic, we recommend the excellent Loagri video: 😱 11 000 HA traités par cet ÉNORME DRONE : je DÉCOUVRE la GUERRE au DATURA 🌱 + XÉRION 5000 BLACK⚫)
- Biocontrol approaches are currently being explored.
- And why not, in the future, solutions that render datura plants sterile to reduce the stock of viable seeds?
- New agricultural machinery capable of straddling mature crops
Currently available solutions to combat datura—especially those compatible with organic farming—remain underdeveloped and costly. As a result, they are out of reach for many farmers. This situation is all the more concerning as datura continues to spread rapidly, far beyond its original zones, threatening an increasing number of farms around the world. In light of this swift progression, it is more urgent than ever to develop sustainable alternatives that can both support farmers and supply chains already affected by this issue and help prevent its further expansion.
So, what do we do now?
As is often the case in agriculture, there’s no silver bullet — it’s about rolling up our sleeves and moving forward together. So with the team, we test, we adapt, and above all, we ask the right questions — collectively — to help bring out strong, lasting solutions, co-developed with project leaders. (Agrilifestudio on WTTJ)
Vous travaillez sur ce sujet ? Vous avez mis en place (ou observé) des solutions concrètes contre le datura ?
Vous êtes agriculteur, technicien, chercheur, porteur de projet, ou simplement curieux avec une idée ou un contact pertinent à partager …
👉 Reach out to us via the contact form on our website ( Homepage – Agrilife Studio).
At AgriLife Studio, we believe in collective intelligence and the power of field experience. We’d be happy to connect, learn more about your practices, and explore possible courses of action together.
SOURCES
1 Au moins 49 personnes intoxiquées par la farine contaminée au datura, La France Agricole
2 Influence of elements of climate change on the growth and fecundity of Datura stramonium-PubMed
3 Kenya: noxious weed killing Maasai livestock, as others stand by – The Africa Report.com