The historical and future perspective of Weed Science research in India

Abstract

The weeds menace is as old as agriculture. The total actual economic loss, due to weeds in 10 major crops of India, was estimated at US$ 11 billion. Weed management involves integrated efforts to manage weeds in crops to selectively minimize the weed competition so as to enable crops to optimally use resources such as soil fertility, water and sunlight, for attaining the optimal harvestable crop yield. During the last fifty years researchers have worked, evolved weed management technologies and passed on to farmers through different means by which farmers got benefited. However, weeds continue to be a major problem as weeds are dynamic. Hence, continuous efforts are needed to monitor the ever changing weeds and develop suitable weed management technologies for varying ecosystems. It is essential to review the research work so far conducted and plan for future weed management research for continuously keeping the crop weed balance in favor of crops. Hence in this paper a review of the research published in Indian Journal of Weed Science (IJWS) during the last fifty years was analyzed and synthesis is presented in this paper along with future weed management research needs