Abstract
The major problem faced in agriculture is the weeds and the pests. In order to remove or kill the weeds and the pests, there is a large scale use of weedicides and pesticides that leads to dual expenditure at the cost of crop maintenance. Weeds are rarely considered a priority despite the fact that all the farmers know that majority of their variable costs and time is devoted to eradicate them. The objective of the work was to derive a simple and cheap method to produce a biopesticide from agricultural weeds, in an order which could be used by the farmers. Nineteen weeds were selected, and a biopesticide was produced from them by extraction method. The produced biopesticide was tested in 5 agricultural fields against tea, paddy, maize and cabbage plants. The pesticide was highly effective against aphids, leaf folder disease, thrips, Japanese beetle, army worm and the cutworm caterpillar. The effect of the biopesticide derived from the agricultural weeds was around 50 to 75% more than the conventional chemical based pesticide. The biopesticide produced by this method helps in weed eradication, lowers the cost of crop production and is helpful in getting rid of the harmful effect of chemicals on the entire ecosystem. Key words: Weed, pest, biopesticide, eco system, agriculture.
Highlights
The problems posed by weeds and pests in Indian agriculture are quite substantial
The biopesticide extracted was tested in 5 different agricultural farms in Kishanganj district of Bihar
The biopesticide was tested on Tea, Paddy, Maize and Cabbage plants
Summary
The problems posed by weeds and pests in Indian agriculture are quite substantial. A large scale use of weedicides and pesticides becomes unavoidable to remove or kill the weeds and pests, leading to dual expenditure at the cost of crop maintenance. Weeds are rarely considered a priority despite the fact that all the farmers know that majority of their variable costs and time is devoted to eradicate them. Most crops losses due to pests can be traced directly back to weeds, which harbor the pest as the secondary host. The eradication of weeds mainly done by the farmers is practiced in two ways: (1) mechanical removal which is performed by derooting the whole plant and (2) using weedicides which are sprayed on the weeds. Pest control has as its objective, the reduction of insects and pests, plant pathogen and weeds, to acceptable levels. In one set of farming systems, which we will call conventional, farmers rely primarily on herbicides to suppress weeds
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