Article Summary:
Weeds damage crops and the reason may be because of the radiation, water, and nutrients between weeds (unwanted plants) and the crop. However, the degree of weed control in many crops is high and the input farming systems seem to be poorly related to the risk of competition. In almost all agricultural systems, the removal of weeds by hand or by the use of herbicides is common practice. Because farmers’ main interest is crop production and hand weeding will be treated in some detail. Before planting or drilling a new crop, the land is cleaned from weeds as part of the seedbed preparation. The crop is planted and after some time the farmer will judge the need for weeding.
First of all, it’s important to understand what weed actually is and how they are dangerous for crops. The weeds are undesirable plants that grow along with the crops. These weeds feed on the nutrients provided to the crops and thus reduce the supply of nutrients to the crops, thereby, affecting their growth. The growth of these weeds needs to be limited in order to enhance the growth of the plants.
WEEDING AND THEIR METHOD
The process of removal of weeds is known as weeding. To obtain this, weedicides (a chemical weed killer) are employed, which essentially chemicals are specifically made to destroy weeds. They are regularly sprayed before the process of seeding and flowering. Furthermore, controlling weeds in crop production involves higher costs than disease and insect pest control because weeds are a relatively constant problem, and insects and diseases break out occasionally. Some important weeding methods are listed below:
- Weeds can be controlled using weedicides: It is a chemical, which is sprayed in the fields to kill all available weeds. Weedicides are not harmful to crops.
- Tilling (the practice of aerating the soil to permit moisture and air to permeate, allowing seeds to germinate, encouraging root growth, controlling weed growth, and integrating fertilizers into the soil) before sowing crops also helps in removing weeds: Tilling uproots the weeds. The best time to remove weeds is before they produce flowers and seeds.
- The manual method of removing weeds is with the help of a khurpi (A short-handled cutting tool with a flat blade used for digging soil and weeding in small gardens or vegetable farms). It involves regular uprooting or cutting of weeds close to the ground.
- MANUAL METHOD: Walking the field and pulling out the weeds.
- BY MECHANICAL MEANS: Use a trowel through the field that will fill up the space between the crop rows and cut/kill the weeds.
HERBICIDES AND WEED CONTROL
Most of the weed problems can be controlled by hand-weeding, mulching, good garden or landscape design, keeping lawns vigorous and competitive, and using other non chemical methods. Herbicides (weed killers) are designed to control undesirable plants. When using herbicides it’s important to keep the direction of use in mind, otherwise, products may fail to control the weeds and can damage or limit the plant's ability to replant itself in that area.
The following are the main points you should consider before applying herbicide:
- Be sure the weeds are in a stage that is susceptible to the herbicide.
- Spray early at the 3 - 5 leaf stage for successful weed control in spring cereals.
- To maximize the uptake of herbicides the weeds need to be actively growing for 3-4 days before spraying.
- Timing: There are numerous herbicides available that can be applied from the 2-3 leaf stage to flag leaf.
MONITORING WHEAT SYSTEM BASED ON IOT
Using the IoT we can monitor the process of wheat diseases, pests, and weeds, building an automated monitor system of wheat diseases, pests, and weeds based on IoT. The process of diseases, pests, and weeds cannot be controlled and monitored in real-time. The system uses the ZigBee network to connect the terminal sensing devices and connect the big data platform by IoT. The system will use a large amount of data collected by the IoT terminal to build a big data platform, and build an intelligent warning system of wheat diseases, pests, and weeds based on the platform. The users can monitor what is happening to the wheat using a laptop or mobile device.
EFFECTS OF WEATHER
The effect of weather conditions on the development of pests and diseases is one of the major issues. Moreover, plant productivity decreases due to the rise in temperature, and drought conditions are directly linked with global warming. When plant population decreases it directly affects the insect population which survives on plants. As crops and pests or diseases do not always react in a similar way to different weather conditions, such relations are probably weather-specific. Because it is impossible to establish the relation between the relative growth rate of the causal agent and the crop's development stage for each weather type, it is advisable to assess the effects of differences in weather conditions on population growth separately, which is applied to various weather conditions.
CONCLUSION
Climate change can cause an increase in carbon dioxide emission, which causes the greenhouse effect around the globe and affects all agricultural ecosystems. It happens occasionally that one factor favours plant growth but another transfers the positive effect into a negative effect. Moreover, temperature variation alters the rate of precipitation which ultimately increases drought conditions which is very important for wheat growing. It has been said that if these effects remain uncontrolled it will cause a major food shortage in coming years when food is already expected to be doubled as the world population increases day by day and industrialization increases all these risks. So, it is important to practice management practices to conserve our ecosystem and make this planet a safe place to live.
- The Dedicated Team of Pasture.io, 2022-08-23