Herbicide Resistance in Crops and Weeds

Abstract

Weeds have been proved as the ultimate pests of crop plants. Use of herbicides has become one of the best solutions to control weeds on a large scale. Due to ignorance, less diversity in herbicides, and their availability in local markets and cost affordability etc. The farmers use only one or a few major herbicides for long time, and it causes the herbicide resistance in weeds. Genetically modified (GM) herbicide-resistant (HR) crops have been blindly cultivated by farmers throughout the world, especially in the United States. GE crops have been blamed for increased problems with HR-weeds. Due to adoption of GM, herbicide-resistant cultivars substantially reduced herbicide diversity in maize, cotton, and soybean. Intensive use of glyphosate in these crops largely displaced herbicides that were likely to be selected for HR-weeds and the impact of reduced herbicide diversity has been mitigated. It has been expected that if the same pattern of use of herbicides continues, more HR-weeds will develop and the need for developing more HR-crops will increase.