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Preventive Measures for Weed Control in Agriculture

Introduction

Weeds are always a piece of headache for the farming community all over the world. This plant not only competes for the nutrients in the soil with the main crops in the field but also cause serious damage to the health of plants. In agriculture, great attention has been devoted to curtail the growth of weeds in the agricultural fields. Each year, new and innovative measures are introduced to cope with weed issues. This article will present four basic but effective, efficient and easy to apply preventive measures for weed control in agriculture sector. The preventive measures presented here are also equally applicable in other types of farming like vegetable gardening, horticultural crops and orchards etc. The preventive measures include;

  1. Using weed free seeds.
  2. Applying weed free manure.
  3. Using weed free agricultural engineering equipment during ploughing and harvesting.
  4. Clean irrigation water passages in and around the agriculture fields.

4 Preventive Measures for Weed Control

Using Weed Free Seeds

In agriculture as well as in vegetable farming, it is a common observation that weed seed get mixed with the seed of main crop. This happens mainly due to poor management and also lack of farmer’s ability to differentiate between weed seed and crop seed. An example of this case is Mirabilis jalapa. This is a common weed in waste lands and is similar in look with Papaya seed. It often gets mixed involuntarily with Papaya seed and results in poor quality papaya seeds.

Applying Weed Free Manure

Manure is one of the big carriers of weed seeds and is also the chief agent of weed problem in agriculture sector. A good example in this case is of Parthenium hyster. This weed flourish extensively in and around manure or where these is abundance of organic matter. After getting into manure, it multiplies very fast and produces innumerable seeds. When this manure is bought to the agriculture field and spread on the soil not only manures mixes with the soil, but also the seeds of this weed spread and start growing along with the main crop. So, it is easy ad effective to ensure that the manure you are collecting for agricultural field is weed free and collected from clean place.

Using Weed Free Agricultural Engineering Equipment during Ploughing and Harvesting

These equipments are major carriers of dispersing weed seeds, stolons, underground nuts and bulbs of perennial weeds. These tools not only spread weeds but in some cases are the agents of introducing new varieties of weeds in a place where they don’t exist previously. This is because, all farmers don’t have access or capacity to purchase these equipment. So they rent these machines. If the machines are not cleaned properly before operation, then there is a fair chance that seeds of weeds from some other areas get introduce in their field.

Clean Irrigation Water Passages in and Around the Agriculture Fields

It is also a fast and easiest way for weeds to get spread through wider and long ranged areas. Seeds of Portulaca oleracea are easily dispersed through water channels to long range areas and end up in vegetable fields like Okra, Brinjal, Garlic, Radish etc. These spread in large numbers and hence its get very difficult to control them. So it is advised that proper and regular cleaning of irrigation water passages or channels should be carried out at regular intervals so minimize the spreading of weeds.

Cite this Article in APA Style as:

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ]Rahman, M. A. (2018, March 02). Preventive Measures for Weed Control in Agriculture[Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://aridagriculture.com/2018/03/02/preventive-measures-for-weed-control-agriculture[/box]