The opportunities and challenges for harvest weed seed control (HWSC) in India: An opinion

Abstract

Weeds which are escaped during the control measures are one of the source of soil weed seedbank. At the time of crop harvest, several weed species retain a considerable quantity of their seed. These weed seeds are evenly spread across the crop field through various weed seed dispersal mechanisms. By knowing the weed seed retention character of every weed species, their effective weed control can be achieved by the collection and/or destruction of weed seeds during crop harvest using harvest weed seed control (HWSC) methods. Narrow windrow burning, chaff tramlining, chaff carts, chaff lining, the Harrington seed destructor (HSD) and the bale direct system are common HWSC procedures. The crop harvest is a primary contributor to the transmission of weed seeds over the crop fields and with HWSC, we can now skip this process and prevent weed seed spread. This strategy is useful to target weed species that retain a large part of their seed after maturity and was found highly effective in controlling the spread of herbicide resistant weed seeds. HWSC aims to prevent the mature weeds seed from entering the seedbank. Through HWSC, we can prevent the enrichment of soil weed seedbanks and deplete existing soil weed seedbanks in long run. In India, the scope for HWSC is high in organic farming, direct-seeded rice, zero-till wheat, herbicide tolerant rice and high intensive irrigated agriculture while its scope is much limited in rainfed agriculture. However, the efforts on using HWSC are yet to begin in India and should be initiated.