Abstract
Weeds have continually interrupted crop plants since their domestication, leading to a greater yield loss compared to diseases and pests that necessitated the practice of weed control measures. The control of weeds is crucial to ensuring the availability of sufficient food for a rapidly increasing human population. Chemical weed control (herbicides) along with integrated weed management (IWM) practices can be the most effective and reliable method of weed management programs. The application of herbicides for weed control practices calls for the urgency to develop herbicide-resistant (HR) crops. Recently, genome editing tools, especially CRISPR-Cas9, have brought innovation in genome editing technology that opens up new possibilities to provide sustainable farming in modern agricultural industry. To date, several non-genetically modified (GM) HR crops have been developed through genome editing that can present a leading role to combat weed problems along with increasing crop productivity to meet increasing food demand around the world. Here, we present the chemical method of weed control, approaches for herbicide resistance development, and possible advantages and limitations of genome editing in herbicide resistance. We also discuss how genome editing would be effective in combating intensive weed problems and what would be the impact of genome-edited HR crops in agriculture.
Highlights
Despite genome editing offering overwhelming advantages including the development of HR crops, the applications of this technology have certain limitations (Figure 4), such as the plants produced through clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas techniques are considered as genetically modified (GM) in some countries that are subjected to strict regulatory procedures [35]
25−70% more food production to meet the nutritional needs, and on the other hand weeds contribute to a significant yield loss in every cropping system, which is a great threat to global food security
Since weeds have evolved resistance against herbicides, weed management has become a big challenge to providing a sustainable food demand
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The development of Sulfonylurea resistance in crop plants can be an economical and practical way to cope with the damage caused by weeds [16] Another group involves glyphosate that kills plants through inhibiting 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS), an essential enzyme for aromatic amino acids synthesis and several other secondary products. IWM has the potential to reduce weed populations to manageable level It helps in decreasing selection pressure for weed resistance to herbicides, reducing environmental effects of individual weed control methods, and increasing sustainability for cropping systems [65]. Various techniques (approaches), including genome editing, have been employed for the development of HR in plants Despite their effectiveness, HR crops have some environmental impacts, such as affecting agricultural practices, agronomy, management of weeds, and loss of biodiversity [70]. The subsequent emergence of genetic engineering technology made it possible to precisely and rapidly introduce specific variations within the target gene to induce gene silencing or gene expression [83]
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