Abstract
In the last few decades, the increase in the world’s population has created a need to produce more food, generating, consequently, greater pressure on agricultural production. In addition, problems related to climate change, water scarcity or decreasing amounts of arable land have serious implications for farming sustainability. Weeds can affect food production in agricultural systems, decreasing the product quality and productivity due to the competition for natural resources. On the other hand, weeds can also be considered to be valuable indicators of biodiversity because of their role in providing ecosystem services. In this sense, there is a need to carry out an effective and sustainable weed management process, integrating the various control methods (i.e., cultural, mechanical and chemical) in a harmonious way, without harming the entire agrarian ecosystem. Thus, intensive mechanization and herbicide use should be avoided. Herbicide resistance in some weed biotypes is a major concern today and must be tackled. On the other hand, the recent development of weed control technologies can promote higher levels of food production, lower the amount of inputs needed and reduce environmental damage, invariably bringing us closer to more sustainable agricultural systems. In this paper, we review the most common conventional and non-conventional weed control strategies from a sustainability perspective, highlighting the application of the precision and automated weed control technologies associated with precision weed management (PWM).
Highlights
The world population has rapidly exceeded seven billion and is expected to reach nine billion by 2050 [1]
Sustainable weed management comprises a suite of weed management options, including integrated weed management (IWM) [13], which is based on the employment of a multiplicity of weed control strategies [1]
Precision weed management leads to a reduction of inputs without decreasing weed control effectiveness [1]
Summary
The world population has rapidly exceeded seven billion and is expected to reach nine billion by 2050 [1]. The use of herbicides contaminates the soil, water, food and air, causing diseases in humans and animals [8], creating the phenomena of herbicide resistance and unbalancing ecosystems From this perspective, biodiversity plays a preponderant role in the provision of ecosystem services in agricultural systems. IWM aims to optimize crop production and increase grower profit through the concerted use of preventive strategies, scientific knowledge, management skills, monitoring procedures and the efficient use of control practices [14] In this context, a wide and rapidly expanding range of new technologies have been developed and implemented in agricultural practices, which play a key role in progress towards economically and environmentally sustainable weed management [6].
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