The ICAR-Directorate of Weed Research, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh together with the Indian Society of Weed Science had organized a Webinar on “Harvesting of Weed Seeds: A novel preventive way of weed management” on 28 September 2022.
In his address, Director of the ICAR-DWR, Jabalpur, Dr. J.S. Mishra emphasized the need of managing the weed seeds through Harvest Weed Seed Control (HWSC) Technology. He underlined the usefulness of the technology for organic farming to reduce the weed seed bank in the soil to manage the weeds in an effective way.
Dean (Agricultural Engineering), AEC & RI, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, Dr. B. Shridar regarded the accumulation of weed seeds in soil as the main reason for weed infestation in future crops. He emphasized harvesting weed seeds at the time of harvesting crops as one of the best preventive management strategies.
Dr. Michael Walsh, the Lead Speaker, delivered the Talk covering the various aspects of research and development of the HWSC Systems.
His efforts in the area of HWSC have led to the introduction as well as wide adoption of the technology in Australia. The weed seed density was recorded very less after applying HWSC Systems in comparison to control.
More than 180 people that included Scientists as well as Students from the different ICAR Institutes and State Agricultural Universities took part in the Webinar.
About Weed Seeds
A weed is a plant, which is considered undesirable in a particular situation, it is a plant in the wrong place”. These are plants, which are unwanted and not in human-controlled settings, such as, lawns, parks, farm fields & gardens.
The term “weed” has no significance, as it is a plant, which is a weed in one context and is not weed when it is growing in a, where it is wanted and where the one species of a plant is valuable crop plant then another species in a similar genus might be a serious weed, such as bramble, that is growing in an among the cultivated loganberries.
(Source: ICAR-Directorate of Weed Research, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh)
