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3A Weed Science As A Discipline

Weed science deals with studying weeds, their biology, control, and potential uses. Its main goal is to develop effective, economical, and environmentally safe weed control strategies. Weed science was recognized as a discipline later than other plant protection fields like entomology and plant pathology. This is because weeds were traditionally controlled through manual weeding, which did not require scientific knowledge. Moreover, weed damage is less apparent than insect or disease damage. However, weed control intensified after the herbicide 2,4-D was discovered in 1944, allowing for scientific weed management. A weed is defined as a plant that is unwanted and interferes with human activities like crop production. Whether a plant is a weed depends on

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Elline Torres Macay
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63 views

3A Weed Science As A Discipline

Weed science deals with studying weeds, their biology, control, and potential uses. Its main goal is to develop effective, economical, and environmentally safe weed control strategies. Weed science was recognized as a discipline later than other plant protection fields like entomology and plant pathology. This is because weeds were traditionally controlled through manual weeding, which did not require scientific knowledge. Moreover, weed damage is less apparent than insect or disease damage. However, weed control intensified after the herbicide 2,4-D was discovered in 1944, allowing for scientific weed management. A weed is defined as a plant that is unwanted and interferes with human activities like crop production. Whether a plant is a weed depends on

Uploaded by

Elline Torres Macay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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WEED

SCIENCE
WEED SCIENCE AS A DISCIPLINE
➢ Weed Science deals with anything about weeds like their biology,
control, and possible utilization.
➢ Its main objective is to formulate an effective, more economical
and at the same time an environmentally safe weed control
strategy.
➢ The recognition of Weed Science as a discipline came in a later
time compared with other fields in Plant Protection such as
Entomology and Plant Pathology.
➢ According to Mercado (1979) the delayed recognition of weed
science is because of the idea that one can always resort to hand
weeding which does not require any scientific background.
➢ Moreover, the damage caused by weeds is not as distinct as those
inflicted by insects and pathogens.
➢ However, weed awareness has been there since man started with
agriculture, keeping only the desirable vegetation and disposes
those that are undesirable.
➢ However, the desire to control the weeds intensively just started
when the herbicidal potential of 2,4-D (2,4-dichorophenoxy acetic
acid) was discovered in 1944 in the United States of America.
WHAT IS A WEED?
Definitions
A weed is commonly defined as a plant that:
 is out of place; undesirable
 not sown whose undesirable features outweigh its desirable
characteristics
 whose virtues have not yet been discovered
 is unwanted, undesirable, grows everywhere such as in roads
sides, in cultivated and non-cultivated areas;
 interferes with human activities like in crop production; and
interferes with water navigation
 is herbaceous not valued for use of beauty, growing wild and
regarded as cumbering the ground or hindering the growth of
superior vegetation
 A Great Britain farmer Jethro Tull was the First person who have
defined weed in 1731 in his book “Horse Hoeing Husbandry.

 A plant could be undesirable at one place and desirable at other


place.
Ex. foxtail and goose grass are valuable plant in pasture but in
crop field these are well known troublesome weeds

 If a farmer has sown a sorghum crop in the field then the plants/
vegetation other than sorghum are considered as weed.
CONCEPT OF A WEED
Based on those definitions, the concept of a weed is relative:

 A particular plant is a weed in terms of human attitude and its


relative position with reference to other plants.

 A plant is considered a weed when it is undesirable to man at


certain place and time.

 Even a crop can be a weed when it grows at unwanted areas.

 Thus, a corn plant is a weed in a rice field.


 Weed is a plant growing out of place
- They are unwanted non-useful, effectively competing with the
beneficial and desirable crop plants for space, nutrients,
sunlight and water; interfere with agricultural operations and
thereby reduce the yield and quality of the produce.

 Weeds have existed from the beginning of agriculture


- from the earliest periods of their existence, the primitive farmer
had tried to pull them out by hand and this has prevented them
from competing with cereal crops, even though this was a
tedious agricultural operation.
 This simple means of eradicating weeds has been in vogue
and is being carried out often by women and children.
 With the advancement of agricultural technology, mechanical
weeding was found to be a quick and practical method of
fighting weeds and now the chemical revolution is showing
new heights of efficiency.
 With the adoption of this modern technology, weeds will no
longer be a limiting factor in crop production.
 As labor becomes scarce and the wages are constantly
increasing, the cost of weed control employing manual labor
is getting uneconomical, and thus, chemical weed control is
progressing at an accelerating rate under such situations
which is helping the weedicide trade to come to the forefront,
in recent years.
EVOLUTION OF WEEDS
 Weeds are no strangers to man

 They have been there ever since he started to cultivate crops about
10,000 BC and undoubtedly recognized as a problem from the
beginning

 Hence, it is considered that many weeds principally originated


from two important and major arbitrarily defined groups
- By man’s conscious effort
- By invasion of plants into man created habits

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